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Deadly pathogens repeatedly dispatched by U.S. labs to unsecure sites

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Public, academic and private laboratories that work with deadly diseases have mistakenly transferred highly contagious viruses and bacteria to unsecure locations at least twenty-one times in the past 13 years, a frequency more than double what the officials overseeing such work previously said their data showed, according to a new Government Accountability Office report.

In each case, the scientists and officials involved wrongly concluded that the deadly pathogens had been inactivated and thus were safe to transport elsewhere. One of the incidents, involving mistaken shipments by a Defense Department laboratory of live anthrax bacteria, attracted wide notice in 2015. But the GAO report said key government agencies have been slow to fix managerial and policy lapses that contributed to that event and might provoke additional errors.

No government-wide standards exist for ensuring that pathogens have been inactivated – either by chemicals, radiation, heat or filtration -- prior to their shipment via public channels, the GAO report said. No firm requirements exist for reporting mistakes, a circumstance that means the real number of improper shipments could be even greater than 21. And no clear policies have been set on how lapses are to be punished.

The Departments of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, two of the principal oversight agencies, “do not know the extent to which incomplete inactivation occurs and whether incidents are being properly identified, analyzed, and addressed,” the GAO said.

The auditors’ report focused on the government’s Select Agents Program, which regulates the use of bacteria, toxins, and viruses – including anthrax, Ebola, Marburg, and others -- that have the capacity to pose a severe threat to humans, livestock, and crops, because the pathogens are deadly and no treatments may be available. As of May, 286 research facilities around the country were enrolled in the program, which allows them to conduct scientific experiments with such pathogens in laboratories outfitted with special gear to ensure the materials cannot leak.

They are all obliged to inactivate the pathogens before removing them from these laboratories, and in fact useful scientific work frequently occurs with inactivated as well as live pathogens. But government oversight of these labs is notoriously weak; in 2013, the GAO called it fragmented and too reliant on self-policing.

In the new report, the auditors lamented that the government is still “without a national strategy” for ensuring that the associated risks are minimized, and also complained that no single person or governmental organization is responsible for fixing problems.

The principal message of the report, which was requested by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and produced in consultation with the National Academy of Science and top biology experts, was that the government as a result lacks accurate knowledge of how often live pathogens have been wrongly circulated and why; it also is generally unaware of how inconsistently the rules have been enforced.

Top officials of the Select Agents Program, for example, told GAO 10 improper shipments had occurred since the beginning of 2004, mostly involving anthrax but also including equine encephalitis virus – an agent once used in the U.S. biowarfare program – as well as Ebola and botulinum toxin.

After the GAO dug more carefully through the program’s own records, as well as a separate database at the National Institutes of Health, however, it found evidence of another 11 improper shipments of live “select” pathogens as well as at least four improper shipments of pathogens formed through artificial (or “recombinant”) engineering of such pathogens, typically to produce vaccines. In two instances involving the “select” agent shipments – from a university and from a private laboratory – those involved refused to talk to the GAO’s auditors.

The auditors noted that additional mistaken shipments of dangerous – but less deadly – pathogens such as West Nile virus and a bacterium that causes tuberculosis might also have occurred, but that no requirement exists to report these to oversight authorities. Experts have said such reporting should be required, the GAO said.

“High-containment laboratories we visited did not consistently apply safeguards when conducting inactivation, and there is limited guidance on doing so,” the GAO report said. Even the Centers for Disease Control, which is supposed to help oversee such work, failed to properly inactivate a sample of the Ebola virus before moving it from a high-security lab to another one in December 2014, the report noted.

The potential for public harm is substantial. In the incidents involving the Defense Department, a military laboratory in Utah was discovered to have wrongly shipped live anthrax to dozens of labs and nine foreign countries. Those labs, in turn, sent the samples – which they believed were safe -- to other locations, according to the GAO report. An Army investigation into the Dugway shipments revealed senior management “allowed a culture of complacency to flourish at the facility, resulting in laboratory personnel who did not always follow rules, regulations, and procedures.”

Even though pertinent rules call for fines of up to $500,000 and even criminal charges for safety breaches in the Select Agents Program, just one fine has been imposed for any of these shipments – a $150,000 penalty against a private lab in 2004, causing GAO investigators to raise a concern that federal labs are receiving more lenient treatment. “This…raises questions about the appearance of a lack of independence in the regulation of these laboratories,” the report said. It said some of the enforcement agencies could not supply documents justifying their decisions to forego penalties.

The auditors recommended establishing a formal tracking system for shipments of active pathogens, and a more reliable, uniform system for assuring diseases are inactivated before they’re shipped.

Officials involved in the Select Agent Program at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Agriculture Department said in written responses to the report that they concurred with these recommendations, and promised to issue new rules this year meant to ensure that pathogens are inactivated before they are shipped. The Defense Department said it had no comment but added that the report would “inform” efforts to improve oversight.

The map depicts sites that received anthrax samples from the Defense Department’s Dugway Proving Ground in Utah that officials there incorrectly thought had been inactivated. R. Jeffrey Smithhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/r-jeffrey-smithPatrick Malonehttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/patrick-malonehttps://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/09/23/20252/deadly-pathogens-repeatedly-dispatched-us-labs-unsecure-sites

Elite ‘bundlers’ raise more than $113 million for Hillary Clinton

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More than 1,100 elite moneymen and women have collectively raised more than $113 million for Democrat Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid, according to an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity of information released this week by her campaign.

The list, updated monthly, includes more than 260 new bundlers who had not previously been disclosed by the campaign. These newly revealed fundraisers and donors include lawmakers, entertainment icons and titans of industry.

Among them: actor Ben Affleck, former Tennessee Democratic Party Chairman Chip Forrester, former U.S. Rep. Joe Garcia of Florida, filmmaker George Lucas, Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, TV producer Seth MacFarlane, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman of California, U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, fashion designer Vera Wang and attorney James Zimmerman, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China.

A “bundler” is someone who collects checks from friends or associates and gives them to the campaign. They are often rewarded for their efforts with prize positions in the administration of the candidate they support. That is, if the candidate wins.

Also new on the list are U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, and his wife, Cynthia Blumenthal; Timothy Boyle, president and CEO of Columbia Sportswear, and his wife, Mary Boyle; Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings and his wife, Patricia Quillin; and actor Tobey Maguire and his wife, Jennifer Meyer.

By law, only registered lobbyists who bundle campaign contributions must be revealed — along with the exact amount they raise.

Individuals, or couples, who raise or donate at least $100,000 toward Clinton’s presidential bid have been dubbed “Hillblazers” by her campaign, which is voluntarily releasing their names but not the exact amounts they have raised.

Clinton’s Republican rival, Donald Trump, has not voluntarily revealed any information about his top fundraisers.

Former President George W. Bush and U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona both disclosed the names of their top presidential campaign fundraisers, while 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney did not.

Under both Democratic and Republican presidents, campaign bundlers have often landed perks after their preferred candidate is elected, including plum ambassadorships, government contracts and access to exclusive White House meetings and social events.

As the Center for Public Integrity previously reported, dozens of top fundraisers for President Barack Obama were nominated for ambassador posts — often in western European capitals such as London, Paris and Stockholm.

Obama used broad disclosure categories when revealing details about how much his bundlers had raised. The largest category was simply “more than $500,000,” although sometimes fundraisers collected millions of dollars.

For instance, businessman Matthew Barzun— who served as Obama’s first ambassador to Sweden and now serves as ambassador to the United Kingdom — apparently raised more than $3 million for Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, according to information revealed earlier this month as part of the hack into DNC emails.

And investment banker Azita Raji, whom Obama nominated to be ambassador to Sweden in 2014, raised more than $4.7 million for Obama’s two presidential bids, according to documents obtained by the New York Times in 2012.

Unlike Obama, Clinton is revealing only one category for her Hillblazers, making it impossible to readily ascertain which ones are in a class above the rest.

Additionally, as of July, the Clinton campaign has been including on its list people who contribute or raise at least $100,000 for the Hillary Victory Fund or Hillary Action Fund. These two joint fundraising committees benefit Clinton’s presidential campaign as well as the DNC and state-level Democratic parties.

Donors can give far more to a joint fundraising committee than they could to a candidate’s campaign committee.

The Hillary Victory Fund alone benefits 38 state Democratic parties, in addition to the DNC and Clinton’s campaign — meaning an individual donor could currently cut a single check to it for nearly $420,000 and immediately make the list of Hillblazers.

As of June 30, elite fundraisers had helped Clinton raise at least $49.6 million — or at least 18 percent of the $275 million her campaign committee had raised at that time.

Bundlers were also responsible for about one-fourth of the first $47.5 million Clinton’s presidential campaign raised last year.

This story was co-published with the Huffington Post and TIME.

Hillary Clinton with actor Ben Affleck at the Clinton Global Initiative's annual awards in 2013. Newly released information shows Affleck has raised more than $100,000 for Clinton's 2016 presidential bid.Michael Beckelhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/michael-beckelhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/09/23/20254/elite-bundlers-raise-more-113-million-hillary-clinton

A trail of contracting fiascos

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This article was co-published with The Washington Post.

In 2006, the Mongolian Finance Ministry hired a small Chicago-based consulting firm called Glocoms to strengthen its budget planning. The $1.5-million job, financed by the World Bank, aimed to help a country still grappling with Soviet legacies reallocate its spending and reduce its debt.

Unfortunately, the company’s consultants didn't always show up and their reports were riddled with errors, said Zahid Hasnain, who oversaw the project for the Bank starting in 2008. Glocoms was supposed to send employees, he said, but instead subcontracted the work to another company.

After Bank investigators took a broad look at Glocoms’ work and concluded that in Mongolia it had misrepresented the availability of key staff, causing “performance deficiencies,” the contract was cancelled, according to a debarment notice.

But the small contractor had aspirations beyond Mongolia. The investigators also concluded that Glocoms had misstated its qualifications when bidding for contracts in Ethiopia, Iraq, Vietnam and the West Bank and Gaza – in a total of 49 instances, according to a Bank press release in 2010 and notices it issued in 2011. The Bank blacklisted the firm and its owner in 2010 for four years, and a year later, extended the punishment until March 2018.

That didn’t stop Glocoms from getting new contracts from federal or global public institutions, including the U.S. government, a Center for Public Integrity investigation shows.

After its World Bank debarment, Glocoms landed dozens of contracts and earned nearly $9 million for providing services to U.S. agencies, mostly the Department of Defense, according to FedMine, a firm that aggregates federal contracting data. These included assignments to supply flight surgeons, paramedics and hazardous waste disposal personnel.

Since 2014, Glocoms has received nearly $5.9 million in U.S. government revenue, according to FedMine data, with at least $1 million dollars from federal contracts this year alone.

The Center’s investigation found that troubled small government contractors like Glocoms can readily get new contracts for a host of reasons. U.S. agencies have no mandate to take international sanctions into consideration when awarding contracts. And many international or U.S. contracting officers conduct only superficial vetting of small contractors, while keeping imperfect databases on problematic conduct.

The international institutions that pay for this work – including the World Bank – most often leave it to others, such as local governments, to ensure that those doing the work have clean records. The governments, in turn, often have few tools and little ability to investigate past work by small or foreign contractors that they are not financing themselves.

While some contractor matchmaking firms – which place consultants and short-term workers at government agencies -- operate honestly, others appear to operate on the margins of the relatively loose domestic and international rules that govern such work, or step over them. The profits can be considerable, and the scope of the work – and its potential impact, either good or bad – is often substantial. Their duties can range from advising governments on cargo security to reforming national regulatory bodies to supplying medical services staff.

Federal spending on service contracts that include this type of work increased between 2000 and 2012 by 90 percent, adjusted for inflation, to reach $259 billion — more than the $244 billion spent on salaries and benefits for regular civilian federal employees. In 2014, nearly two-thirds of federal contracting dollars were spent on services rather than goods. And in fiscal year 2015, roughly a quarter of all federal contracting dollars went to small companies, amounting to $90.7 billion.

In eleven of Glocom’s contracts with U.S. government agencies, including the Millennium Challenge Corporation (which helps administer U.S. foreign aid), the Army, and the Fish and Wildlife Service, the firm had problems meeting agreed requirements, and in two other cases it failed to provide the qualified staff it had promised, according to documents obtained through public records requests and staff at the agencies that oversaw the contracts. These included contracts to inspect munitions, provide surgical technicians for the Army, and to clean government facilities.

While federal rules require that contracting officers take steps to ensure that all vendors are responsible, ethical and experienced, they aren’t required to consider past sanctions by international institutions such as multilateral banks, even when those show a pattern of fraud. For awards below $150,000 – mostly reserved for small firms like Glocoms – officials aren't even required to update or check databases on performance and integrity or to document any concerns.

“The government seems willing to make some trade-offs to support small businesses, figuring that it's smaller dollars, and therefore [it] puts itself at risk of hiring a contractor that has a poor track record and isn't qualified to get the job done,” says Scott Amey, general counsel at the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog organization based in Washington.

‘Anybody Can Do It’

The Glocoms Group Inc. was formed in Chicago in March 2004 by Cameroonian-born Maurence Anguh.

The firm’s website displays a motto that it had trademarked until March 2015 — “From Strength to Strength” – and the catchphrase: “You can trust us today, tomorrow and thereafter.” The site says that Glocoms has taken on 140 projects in more than 50 countries, and has offices on five continents. The address specifically listed on its website is for a mailbox at a UPS Store beneath a street-level Chicago Starbucks.

Anguh declined to comment about his work practices or debarment after multiple attempts to reach him over the phone, by email and in person. During a reporter’s 2013 visit to Anguh’s Chicago home address, Anguh said on the street outside that he did not want to comment. In December 2014, after several more attempts to reach Anguh and his business partners, he said he would pursue legal action if the Center’s reporters continued to contact him or other Glocoms employees.

After Anguh's wife filed for divorce in 2008, he told a judge that Glocoms had never had any permanent employees, and relied instead on more than 50 consultants, including his wife’s uncle, according to a 2011 judgment in Cook County Circuit Court in Illinois. But a July 2013 Dun & Bradstreet report obtained by an Army contracting officer said Glocoms had 78 employees and $15 million in sales, as of May that year, while FedMine’s listing for the firm in June– based on the company’s self-reporting to the government – cites 10 employees and $700,000 in revenues.

In a 2011 proposal to supply a flight medicine physician at a Texas Air Force base, Anguh listed five others – including Humphrey Anyele and Yufanyi Vifansi -- as his company’s “senior managers,” and described how he used “celebrations like surprise high tea parties, small outings and sporting events [that] keep the spirit alive and maintain vibrancy at work.” In testimony to the divorce court judge that year, however, he described Anyele and Vifansi as consultants. 

The company’s phone answering service offers extensions for Anguh, Anyele and Vifansi, and for two others named Mimi Feigenson and Emmanuel Asongwe. Anyele and Asongwe could not be reached, Feigenson declined to comment, and LinkedIn profiles for all but Anguh list them as holding different jobs for other firms.

Vifansi, whose profile describes him as a project manager at a Chicago energy company, said in a 2014 telephone interview that it was simple for Glocoms to craft successful proposals for government agencies. “It’s a very easy thing. Anybody can do it,” he said, adding that he no longer worked for the company.

Blacklisted

In September 2003, Anguh won a $186,000 World Bank-financed contract in the company's name to advise Romania’s insurance regulator. Over the next six years, Glocoms and its affiliates got at least 27 other consulting contracts worth $4.4 million in Bank-backed projects, mostly in Africa. These included jobs auditing financial accounts in Angola, helping West African authorities track the transit of cargo, and planning how to reduce attrition in the Gambian civil service.

The borrowers of World Bank funds – usually local government agencies – are supposed to check the qualifications of consultants; Bank staff provide a checklist “to help procurement officials detect fraudulent qualifications and related types of misconduct,” a senior Bank official said, but themselves review less than 35 percent of the 20,000 contracts awarded each year, according to the Bank's data.      

Government agencies that get World Bank funding are required to check its debarment list as well as similar lists compiled by other multilateral banks. But neither the Bank nor its borrowers have an easy way to tell if contractors who aren't blacklisted failed to perform on past projects or had contracts canceled, because the Bank doesn't systematically track and share this information, according to spokesman David Theis.

“The Bank’s role is to make sure that the borrower’s work is done properly, that the agreed procurement procedures are observed, and that the entire process is conducted with efficiency, fairness, transparency and impartiality,” he said. The Bank thus typically debars companies for fraud or other misconduct only when a complaint leads to an investigation, he noted.

In Glocoms’ case, the Bank's investigative arm, known as the Integrity Vice Presidency, began looking into the company in 2007, focusing on a $660,000 contract that Glocoms received in 2006 to help a Vietnamese bank reform its payment system. Investigators concluded that Glocoms had “misrepresented its capacity and commitment in the proposal,” according to the Bank's final report on the Vietnam project.

By 2011, they described a pattern of misconduct by Glocoms, according to sanctionsnotices. The company had misrepresented references to its past experience while bidding for contracts in five projects, according to two notices that Pascale Dubois, the Bank's evaluation and suspension officer, issued in 2011 recommending further sanctions. Besides the job with Mongolia's finance ministry, these included bids for projects to strengthen Ethiopia's financial sector, build local government capacity in the West Bank and Gaza, and develop emergency hydropower in Iraq.           

“The fact that they provided bad advice meant that money was wasted,” said Hasnain, who oversaw the Mongolia project for the Bank.

In June 2011, the Bank extended its debarment of Glocoms and Anguh for four years, until March 2018. The notices spelling out sanctions noted “the repeated pattern of [Glocoms’] misconduct,” which “spanned numerous Bank-financed projects over an extended period.” They explained that Glocoms hadn't complied with all of the investigators' requests and that Anguh “did acknowledge that the information in the experience references at issue was incorrect.” Glocoms did not contest the 2011 sanctions.

Bank spokesman Theis, who would not comment specifically on Glocoms, said it can take the Bank years to uncover fraud because it lacks law enforcement powers, and both the contractors and the governments hiring them may wish to conceal wrongdoing. “The nature of such cases is that two of the three parties (the Bank being the third) are seeking to cover their tracks and hide evidence, thus misconduct can occur over long periods without being uncovered,” he said.

Theis added that in 2010 the Bank created a database that alerts its own staff if a firm is on investigators’ “radar screen,” even if it hasn't yet been sanctioned. But the Bank hasn’t typically shared the contents with any other organizations.

Because the World Bank doesn't have a formal cross-debarment agreement with the United Nations, Glocoms continued consulting for the United Nations Development Programme in Somalia in 2011 after it was debarred by the Bank, receiving almost $62,000, UNDP spokesman Dylan Lowthian said. The U.N. suspended work with Glocoms in 2013, after a reporter informed it of the Bank’s debarment decision.  U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said that it ordinarily checks the Bank’s debarment list, among others, when registering companies and awarding contracts but offered no explanation for the three-year delay in taking action.

Millions in U.S. government contracts

While it was working on Bank-financed projects, Glocoms ran into trouble with the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a U.S. federal foreign aid agency. In Georgia, Glocoms was picked as a procurement agent for a nearly $300-million project to build roads and a natural gas pipeline spanning the country. In Armenia, it was awarded the job of preventing fraud, waste and abuse in a $235-million project to bring roads and irrigation projects to three-quarters of the country’s rural population. Glocoms stood to receive $9 million for the two contracts.

In 2007, however, the MCC terminated Glocoms’ contract in Armenia because it switched key staff members and made subcontracting arrangements without approval, according to MCC spokeswoman Laura Allen. The same year, the MCC suspended Glocoms’ contract in Georgia after the inspector general for the Agency for International Development opened a probe into it, Allen said. It was then terminated in 2008, when MCC found a new contractor to do the work, she said. Glocoms was paid nearly $2 million in total, and neither contract was officially terminated for cause, MCC spokeswoman Renee Kelly said.

Despite its problems with the MCC, Glocoms since 2010 has won dozens of contracts and received a total of nearly $9 million from the U.S. government, including at least $6 million from the Defense Department, according to FedMine data.  Glocoms has an active listing in the government’s registry of contractors eligible to receive federal funds as a potential vendor for 57 services, ranging from environmental consulting to physician services to newspaper publishing.

In one of these contracts, Glocoms beat out two competitors to win an $800,000 contract in Aug. 2013 to inspect munitions at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Richmond, Kentucky. The contract gave Glocoms three days to outline its radiation safety plan and provide a list of radiographers qualified to X-ray projectiles. It missed both deadlines, according to a copy obtained by the Center of a letter contracting officer Patricia Brown sent to Anguh in September 2013. Glocoms submitted credentials for seven candidates the following week, but technical experts found that none had proper certifications, according to the September 2013 letter.

“The experience of trying to get this contractor to understand and deliver under this contract leads me to believe it will not be in the government's best interest to continue dealing with him,” a colleague wrote to Brown in a Sept. 2013 email. The following month, a different contract officer cancelled the contract "for cause," according to the termination letter.

The Army also ran into more problems with Glocoms. In March 2015, it terminated a custodial services contract with the company because its janitors were perennially late or absent, according to a letter from contracting officer Steven Bailey. The following month, in April 2015, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service canceled two contracts with Glocoms to provide janitorial services at facilities in North Dakota and Montana. Both were terminated for cause because of the company's “continued poor and/or non-performance,” according to agency spokesman Ryan Moehring.

Similarly, in November 2014, the Air Force terminated Glocoms' contract to supply a Catholic religious education coordinator at an Alaskan base because the company hadn't submitted qualified candidates nearly two weeks after the person was supposed to start work, according to a letter the Air Force sent Anguh in October 2014 and a contract modification signed in December 2014.

Although only four terminations officially faulted Glocoms’ performance, the company had at least four other federal contracts canceled early under the “for convenience” rubric. This type of cancellation allows government agencies to terminate a contract without stating why or explicitly blaming the consultant. In at least three other jobs, including those for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Veterans Affairs, Glocoms had trouble meeting requirements, according to agency staff and documents.

It wasn’t possible to find out how Glocoms performed in all its U.S. contracts, because federal policy bars release of some performance assessment records. But some of Glocoms’ other U.S. contracts were carried out smoothly, according to government records and staff.

A flight surgeon Glocoms stationed at Dyess Air Force Base “provided an excellent body of work,” according to base spokesperson Joel Mease. In 2013, an official at Buckley Air Force Base emailed a contracting officer that a medical application systems trainer the company provided was “meeting the service need” and “quality is satisfactory.” Andy Wallace, youth sports director at Tyndall Air Force Base, where Glocoms supplied officials for games, said “they’re very good. They’ve been on the ball supplying sports officials.”

Loopholes In The System

Some experts say many of the shortcomings in the review of small contractors could be fixed if federal contracting officers had access to more thorough and reliable information.

While U.S. rules require such officers to verify that firms have a “satisfactory record of integrity and business ethics” and a “satisfactory performance record,” they don’t have to consider whether the firms have been subjected to sanctions by international organizations such as the World Bank. The U.S. system aims to ensure firms are “presently responsible,” regardless of past behavior, while the World Bank's procedures aim to punish companies for misconduct.

“We don’t have the system perfectly integrated,” said Frank Fariello, lead counsel for operations policy in the Bank’s legal division, in an interview. “It is of concern because … if you have loopholes in the system, people [who have been debarred] will no doubt get back in. But even if we did have broader cross-recognition, there would still need to be room for discretion in decision-making.”

The Bank in recent years has referred cases to national authorities, such as the U.S. Department of Justice, if firms appear to have broken domestic laws (it made 22 referrals globally in fiscal year 2015). But it stopped doing so for most cases in 2015, while a Canadian court decided whether the Bank must open its archives and force its staff to testify whenever a referral led to a prosecution. (Theis declined to say whether the Bank told the Justice Department about Glocoms' debarment).

 U.S. federal contracting officers have discretion to conduct a basic Google search about individual firms, though they aren’t required to do so (the top five searches on “Maurence Anguh” or “Glocoms” include an account of the World Bank sanctions).

International debarments also aren't captured in the Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System, a database established by the General Services Administration in 2010 as a one-stop-shop for federal contracting officers to review past performance evaluations, U.S. lawsuits, federal suspensions and debarments, and terminations for cause on government contracts from the previous five years.

“It would be in the government's interest to know about international debarments, either to ask additional questions or to look for competitors who have a better record,” says Amey of POGO, which is urging that the database be expanded to include World Bank sanctions.

U.S. contracting officers don’t even have to consult the database when handing out awards below what’s known as a Simplified Acquisition Threshold — generally $150,000 — most of which are set aside for small businesses such as Glocoms. They also aren't required to report on contractor performance for awards below that threshold.

Congress enacted these simplified rules in 1994 to reduce costs and improve opportunities for small businesses. Recently, changes in federal contracting rules have allowed officers to use the simplified procedures for contracts as large as $13 million for certain items and services (Glocoms' won a 2013 contract to provide radiographers at Blue Grass Army Depot under this rule.)

“They're escaping the radar,” Amey said of small businesses. “When it comes to small contracts the government is accepting more of the burden and more of the risk.”

John Shoraka, an official at the Small Business Administration, says the simplified procedures reflect a balance between risk and efficiency. “With small businesses, we know it won't always be 100 percent. It's a price range where acquisitions need to happen quickly. The thought process is that with the dollar amount, there is less risk to the federal government and therefore we should allow some efficiencies to occur. You can close that risk, but you won't get any business done,” he said.

Shoraka added that he believes the risk of fraud is mitigated by allowing interested third parties, such as rival contract bidders, to protest acquisitions and by suspensions and debarment of bad actors.

“The Army's contracting officers monitor contractor performance for all contracts, irrespective of dollar value,” said Army spokesman Dov Schwartz. “They are required to make an affirmative determination of responsibility for each contract, to include consideration that a contractor has a satisfactory performance record.” He declined to comment on why Glocoms continued to get Army contracts after its 2013 termination for cause by the Army or to say whether contracting officers were aware of its World Bank debarment.

One problem is that many federal databases are incomplete, with performance data recorded only about half the time on average, according to an Aug. 2014 GAO report. Every agency fell short of the 100 percent compliance rate for fiscal year 2015 set as a target by the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in 2003.

The 2014 GAO report noted that one of the reasons for gaps in performance reporting has been a shortage of federal acquisitions staff. Such shortages affect the whole contracting process, says Amey of POGO. “Officers are short on time and resources and training and probably have bigger portfolios than they’ve ever had in the past,” he said. “You don’t want to slow down procurements. You don’t want your boss on your back.”

Glocoms hasn’t slowed down. In the past year, as part of at least $1 million dollars the firm has obtained from the federal treasury, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers hired it to provide advanced life support services; the Federal Bureau of Prisons asked it to provide phlebotomy, dental and radiologic services for inmates; and the Indian Health Services awarded it a contract to provide a diabetes specialist for 37 health care programs.

The results remain to be seen.

This story was reported with the support of the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at the Columbia Journalism School.

The address provided on the Glocoms website turned out to be a mailbox at this UPS Store beneath a street-level Chicago Starbucks.Katia Savchukhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/katia-savchukBethan McKernanhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/bethan-mckernanMichael Phillishttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/michael-phillisAnnie Zakhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/annie-zakhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/09/23/19922/trail-contracting-fiascos

Report slams EPA civil rights compliance

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The nation’s top environmental regulator has failed to meet its civil-rights obligations, forcing communities to endure extreme delays or inaction when seeking respite from polluters, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found.  

In a report released Friday, the commission zeroed in on what it called the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s lackluster compliance with both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and an executive order requiring agencies to consider environmental justice when creating rules -- as well as its track record on clearing cases.

The 230-page report cites and reinforces the findings of a 2015 Center for Public Integrity investigation. The series found that the EPA’s Office of Civil Rights had dismissed nine out of every 10 complaints alleging environmental discrimination and had never formally found a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits recipients of federal funding from acting in discriminatory ways

“Environmental justice is an issue that, one would think, we would have made much more progress on since this has been around for more than a generation,” Commissioner Michael Yaki said during a teleconference Friday. “Much ado was made about EPA putting into effect an environmental justice component into what it did. If anything, this report shows that, as it applies to EPA - which has done many great things over the years - in this particular instance, it has fallen very short. One can say it is practically toothless in its ability to protect the poorest and minority populations of our country from things such as coal ash.”

The report, sent to the White House and congressional leaders, found that the Office of Civil Rights has a “long history” of not effectively enforcing Title VI, dating to 2003, when the commission first dug into the agency’s case backlog.

The commission’s latest review found that of the 25 complaints lodged with the Office of Civil Rights between December 2015 and July 2016, 14 were rejected due to lack of jurisdiction, two were withdrawn by complainants and two were closed for lack of evidence.

As of June, the office had 32 cases pending jurisdictional review, the oldest from 2013, the commission found. Its report said the lingering backlog shows “the Office of Civil Rights is not fulfilling its mission to become ‘a model civil rights’ program.’”

“When we look at this issue, it is one of urgency,” commission Chairman Martin R. Castro said during the teleconference.  “It affects individuals’ daily lives. It affects our ability and the community’s ability to enjoy and value and really exercise many of the other civil rights.” Castro said the EPA had “woefully failed” to meet its civil-rights obligations.

The EPA reviewed the report prior to publication and said it found “serious and pervasive flaws” that were not corrected in the final document. The agency said in an email to the Center that these included “factual inaccuracies, material omissions, mischaracterizations [of] EPA findings, and conclusions not supported by evidence; as well as fundamental misunderstandings about EPA legal obligations and regulatory authorities across a number of the Agency’s programs…”

Mustafa Ali, senior advisor for environmental justice to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, said in a statement that the commission did not adequately consider the work the agency has done to make environmental justice a priority.

“EPA has a robust and successful national program to protect minority and low-income communities from pollution,” Ali said.  “This work, coordinated across our federal, state and tribal partners, has achieved strong results in reducing exposure to serious health threats that overburdened communities face.”

Ali said the EPA is working to address shortcomings in its consideration of environmental justice, including developing the  EJ 2020 Action Agenda. In addition, the Office of Civil Rights has announced plans to do more frequent compliance reviews and publish an annual report to chart the office’s progress. In December, it  issued a notice of proposed rulemaking removing certain complaint-processing deadlines and put out a case manual for investigators examining civil-rights claims.

In its report, the civil-rights commission echoed critics who say this change would actually weaken protections for complainants. Commissioners recommended that the agency maintain statutory deadlines that require it to decide within 20 days whether to accept a complaint for investigation and allow it another 180 days to complete an inquiry.

The Center found that the office took nearly a year, on average, just to determine whether to accept a complaint.

Marianne Engelman-Lado, a senior attorney at the environmental law firm Earthjustice, called the commission’s report “a clarion call for change,” which has “the power of the bully pulpit and of moral persuasion.” She praised its call for EPA officials to open up what many regard as an opaque Title VI investigative process. In their report, the commissioners recommend that the EPA make sure complainants have a seat at the table during any settlement negotiations.

“We’re pleased the commission is recognizing that environmental justice is a space lacking in civil-rights enforcement,” Engelman-Lado said.

The commission’s report recommends that the EPA add staff to the Office of Civil Rights and that Congress study environmental justice requirements under civil rights law and give EPA funds to fulfill those duties. It calls for the EPA to provide minority, tribal and low-income communities with technical assistance to enforce a federal rule governing disposal of often-toxic coal ash.

Most notably, it recommends that the EPA classify coal ash as “special waste”; test drinking water wells near coal ash lagoons; assess the soundness of high-risk coal ash dams and disposal sites; and fund research on the ash’s health effects.

Across the country, coal ash has fouled water sources and endangered public health. In 2014, the agency set national disposal standards that amount to guidelines for the states that call for treating the ash as if it were household trash. Weakened by loopholes, the EPA rule was the product of vigorous lobbying by the utility industry.

The report found that the EPA’s decision to allow coal ash from a massive Tennessee spill to be dumped in a landfill in the predominantly black community of Uniontown, Alabama, was “made for economic reasons.” It said the EPA’s coal ash rule fails to protect minority or low-income communities in that it forces residents to file often-costly lawsuits against the government, businesses or individuals to address alleged violations.

“The commission’s report confirms what we’ve known for years: government is failing to protect America’s most vulnerable communities from dangerous pollution,” Pete Harrison, an attorney for the Clean and Safe Energy Campaign at Waterkeeper Alliance, said in a statement. “Hopefully this will give officials at all levels of government pause to consider that their chronic avoidance of effective safeguards for coal ash dumps continues to put people in harm’s way, especially people in communities of color or low-income areas.”

Ben Eaton, who lives in Uniontown and whose Title VI complaint over the Arrowhead landfill was detailed by the Center, called the commission’s report “a breath of fresh air” for residents who have argued for years that the state permitting process for the landfill violated their civil rights. The report mentions Uniontown some 70 times.

“Finally, someone is trying make those accountable recognize our problems,” Eaton said.

Those who live near the landfill say they must contend with pungent odors and nagging ailments. Some no longer sit on their porches, grow gardens or let children play in their yards.

The EPA’s civil-rights office launched an investigation into the community’s complaint in 2013 but has yet to announce the outcome.

A sign welcomes motorists to Uniontown, Alabama.Talia Bufordhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/talia-bufordKristen Lombardihttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/kristen-lombardihttps://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/09/23/20256/report-slams-epa-civil-rights-compliance

Campaign mega-donors spill on why they open their wallets

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AUSTIN, Texas — A small group of campaign super-donors agreed that the campaign finance system in the U.S. needs reform, but said in the meantime, they are following the rules of the current system and using their donations to fund campaigns that advance causes they support.

This was the message delivered by a panel moderated by Dave Levinthal, senior reporter at the Center for Public Integrity, at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin on Saturday.

“I agree that Citizens United is a flawed decision, I don’t think I would go so far as to call it bribery because I don’t think that’s what it is,” said Austin-based philanthropist Aimee Boone Cunningham.

The 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision “changed the rules of the game for how money may flow into elections,” Levinthal said. It paved the way for the creation of super PACs and politically active nonprofits.

“The way I see it, my challenge as a donor is to find the candidates and the organizations that are doing work on the issues that I care about and then to lift them up, Cunningham said. She gives to candidates that she feels empower women. The big-dollar donor, who helps fund groups that advocate for abortion rights, supports Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and backed Wendy Davis’ campaign for Texas governor.

But even the most generous donations cannot guarantee that a candidate will be elected to office. 

Doug Deason, president of Deason Capital Services, said the impact of these funds is limited.  He noted that the presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is close despite Clinton’s substantially larger fundraising totals.

“Essentially, [Trump] is tied in the national polls and leading some of the swing states and he hasn’t spent that money. That’s pretty impressive. I think that shows how little impact money really has on political races,” Deason said.

According to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of campaign filings, Trump has so far raised $189 million through his campaign and super PACs compared to Clinton’s $530 million.

Toby Neugebauer, founder of Quantum Energy Partners, recently experienced the limits to money’s influence on politics first hand after he donated $10 million to Keep the Promise II, a super PAC supporting the failed presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. The contribution was one of the largest amounts given by a single donor to a super PAC.

“I felt that if we could raise a serious amount of money, then Ted’s campaign would be taken seriously very early,” Neugebauer said.

He added that U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders failed to garner the Democratic presidential nomination not because he lacked adequate funds but rather because he failed to win enough votes from super delegates.

The Vermont Senator is a vocal critic of big money in politics and ran a campaign that relied heavily on small contributions.

Despite this, panelists largely agreed that fundraising plays too big of a role in politics.

“I do think [politicians] spend an absolutely inordinate amount of time on fundraising,” said Amber Mostyn, a Houston trial lawyer and shareholder at Mostyn Law. Mostyn is a founding member of the Ready for Hillary PAC, a super PAC that helped lay groundwork for Clinton's campaign.

The emphasis on soliciting donations, Levinthal noted, raises the question of whether the political system is skewed when candidates and officials hear so much from people who have the means of getting into exclusive political fundraisers.

Mostyn replied to his comment, saying: “There is a huge income inequality problem in this country and it is gendered and it is racial, and it plays out in our campaign finance system and in the way that money is raised and spent in politics.”

Despite this, Deason noted, “At the end of the day each person on the stage only has one vote.”

Participants in the “Brought to You By Donors” panel discussed campaign finance at the Texas Tribune Festival held at the University of Texas at Austin on Sept. 24, 2016. Panelists from left to right are: moderator Dave Levinthal, senior political reporter at the Center for Public Integrity; ; Toby Neugebauer, founder of Quantum Energy Partners; Aimee Boone Cunningham, an Austin-based philanthropist; Doug Deason, president of Deason Capital Services; and Amber Mostyn, Houston trial lawyer and shareholder at Mostyn Law.Rachael Seeley Floreshttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/rachael-seeley-floreshttps://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/09/24/20258/campaign-mega-donors-spill-why-they-open-their-wallets

Drug trade in misery, Panama Papers and fear of Facebook

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Politicians and the misery of pain

Money in politics has been at the root of the Center’s reporting since its creation under Chuck Lewis 27 years ago. Few stories demonstrate the human and national impact of that more than the state political reporting team’s “Politics of Pain” series launched over the weekend in partnership with The Associated Press.

It’s a horrifying story of the tragedy of addiction to painkillers affecting people across the country and the hidden alliance between pharmaceutical companies and politicians which has arguably delayed any resolution to the crisis.

The story is front-page news today across the country thanks to The Associated Press’ reach and capacity to localize the national data crunched by the Center’s team. I’m going to let project manager Kytja Weir explain the project below, but the release is great validation for the idea put forth by Deputy Executive Editor John Dunbar more than two years ago that the anemic level of investigative reporting at the state level can be greatly bolstered nationwide with help from the Center.

Data reporter Ben Wieder did a remarkable job compiling and analyzing the complex data sets that made the project possible, while Liz Essley Whyte’s reporting brought it to life. Kytja, meanwhile, managed the partnership with the AP, shaped the stories and worked tirelessly to ensure the project went off without a hitch. Executive Editor Gordon Witkin was instrumental.

I strongly believe reporting on money in politics in the states is a vital area for the Center as more and more money flows to local and state races because of deadlock in the Capitol.

We are fortunate to have funding for the state reporting team from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation.

Here’s Kytja with more on the opioid project:

“For the Politics of Pain, we collected and analyzed campaign finance and lobbying data from 2006 through 2015 on drug makers and their allies who participated in a little-known national coalition called the Pain Care Forum. With The Associated Press, we reviewed hundreds of documents and interviewed more than 150 officials, experts, advocates and others to gain insights into how the political process influenced the response to the opioid epidemic,” she says.

The project shows how Big Pharma and its allies have spent millions of dollars on a 50-state strategy designed to weaken measures aimed at addressing a crippling opioid addiction crisis in America. We traced contributions from drug makers to politicians and advocacy groups who fought limits on drugs such as OxyContin, Vicodin and fentanyl that have contributed to the deaths of more than 165,000 people since 2000. Drug companies have reaped enormous profits by aggressively prescribing opioid painkillers that can lead to addiction to other dangerous drugs, including heroin.

To date, our opioid project has appeared on at least 145 front pages across the country, with at least 69 Sunday front pages and 76 front pages today.

The project is highly readable and compelling in my view:
·        Politics of pain: Drugmakers fought state opioid limits amid crisis
·        Drugmakers fought domino effect of Washington state opioid limits
·        Pro-painkiller echo chamber shaped policy amid drug epidemic
·        Key findings: Pharma lobbying held deep influence over opioid policies
·        VIDEO

Panama Papers wins at the ONA

The ICIJ team and network behind the Panama Papers scored another big win on Saturday in Denver. The project won the ICIJ and Sueddeutsche Zeitung, whose team received the leak from a John Doe, the coveted Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award in the “large” newsroom category. (If people realized the ICIJ team could fit in a minivan they would realize it wasn’t exactly large.)

It’s the latest in a huge number of awards and other recognition from officials and peers for the Panama Papers, the “leak of the century”, as The Economist called it. Emilia Diaz-Struck, the ICIJ lead researcher accepted the award with a gracious credit to the entire team led by Gerard Ryle and Marina Walker and the more than 400 journalists around the world who took part in the project.

What else we’re reading and thinking about

Separately at the ONA the strength and modernity of the New York Times was striking with multiple awards, including the general excellent prize, which the Times shared with the innovative video platform AJ+ from Al Jazeera. Among our non-profit family, ProPublica scored with a partnership and the “medium” newsroom award in the investigative category and the Texas Tribune won the general excellence “small” prize as well as explanatory (jointly with the Center for Investigative Reporting’s Reveal) and topical reporting.

Facebook was a big presence both in reality and as the elephant in the room at the conference. Facebook product director Fidji Simo was the keynote to kick off the event and elegantly skated over this month’s row over Facebook censoring the famous AP picture of a naked Vietnamese girl running after a napalm attack. The row highlighted the huge impact Facebook has and the debate over its importance as a curator of news. This piece by Reuters on Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg’s letter to the Norwegian Prime Minister – who had posted the Vietnam image – shows that the company may we waking up to the importance of its role. Columbia J-school’s Emily Bell has practically made the issue of Facebook’s editorial power her thesis and is reported in this piece in the Guardian. Here also is Emily's piece on why "Facebook is eating the world". I also encourage you to read this highly critical piece on Facebook by French journalist Frederic Filloux in his weekly must-read Monday Note.

I welcome feedback on this note,

Peter Bale,
CEO, The Center for Public Integrity
pbale@publicintegrity.org

Democratic convention committee obliterated fundraising goal

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The Democratic National Convention host committee blew past its fundraising goal and raked in about $75 million in contributions to bankroll Hillary Clinton's presidential nomination party in Philadelphia, according to a new federal filing.

That’s roughly $10 million more than Republicans raised for their national convention in Cleveland.

Big donors to the Democrats included many corporations and individuals with Philadelphia ties. Some of the biggest include:

  • Comcast Corp., which is based in Philadelphia and gave $5.6 million in cash and in-kind contributions
     
  • Independence Blue Cross, $1.5 million
     
  • Venture capitalist and Hyatt hotel heir J.B. Pritzker, $1.25 million
     
  • Media entrepreneur H.F. Lenfest, $1 million

Labor unions also contributed millions of dollars, with seven-figure sums coming from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers.

Some companies that supported the Democratic National Convention — including Chevron, Facebook, Twitter, accounting firm KPMG, Morgan Stanley and Xerox — also supported the Republican National Convention.

The Democratic host committee set a $60 million fundraising goal for cash and in-kind contributions.

"This is an enormously successful convention from any perspective," former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who served as chairman of the effort, said on a conference call Tuesday. "It raised the visibility of the city in an extraordinary way. Now we can say we've successfully concluded our fundraising efforts."

Rendell added that the Democratic host committee has enough money left to settle all outstanding bills and pay back the remainder of a loan by the end of the year. The convention was the first Democratic convention in more than three decades to produce a small surplus rather than a deficit, he said.

The Democratic host committee’s disclosure report, filed with the Federal Election Commission late Monday, came exactly 60 days after the close of the Democratic National Convention.

Federal law allows convention host committees, which are nonprofits, to keep their fundraising and spending information secret until then.

The Republican host committee last week reported raising roughly $65.8 million — enough to meet its stated pre-convention fundraising goal.

Earlier this year, the Democratic host committee publicly confirmed the Internal Revenue Service had turned down its bid for tax-exempt status, something typically routinely granted to convention host committees.

Without the deduction, individual donors would be unable to claim tax deductions in exchange for their contributions. The committee encouraged donors concerned about the deduction to contribute to the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau, which could in turn issue grants to the host committee.

The Democratic host committee's report reflected $4.4 million worth of income from the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau. Rendell confirmed that money was passed through from donors who wanted to be certain of receiving a deduction, and the money was required to be used for hospitality events to promote the city.

Companies and others who didn't want to contribute to the host committee found other ways to participate, sponsoring parties or delegations, and hosting private events.

In addition to the contributions raised by the host committees, the Republican and Democratic parties have raised millions of dollars through special party accounts created two years ago by Congress two years ago.

Such funds were designed to replace public funding of national political conventions, and the parties disclose these contributions monthly.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton gives her thumbs up as she appears on stage during the final day of the Democratic National Convention on July 28, 2016, in Philadelphia.Carrie Levinehttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/carrie-levinehttps://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/09/27/20262/democratic-convention-committee-obliterated-fundraising-goal

Politics of Pain series prompts calls for action

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When the Center for Public Integrity and The Associated Press launched a two-part series about the politics behind the nation’s opioid addiction epidemic last week, reactions came swiftly from around the country.

More than two dozen editorials and columns were written in response to the “Politics of Pain” project. News outlets from across the nation demanded reforms, calling for congressional and local hearings, changes to campaign finance rules and tighter regulations. One columnist suggested dissolution of the Pain Care Forum, a national coalition of drug companies and their allies that was the focus of the investigation.

U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., also cited the reporting from the Senate floor Thursday as he called for action. “The Money Mile and its army of Big Pharma lobbyists are the reason mandatory prescriber education is not the law. It is the reason the Food and Drug Administration has been complicit in many instances in the worsening of this epidemic,” he said. “Our cities are fighting a war, and we need to help them.”

Here’s a sampling of the editorial commentary in response to the series:

The Arizona Republic (Phoenix, Ariz.)
“There's a troubling disconnect between the pharmaceutical industry and the people who need its products.…Americans need Congress to be a full-time, independent champion for their best interests.”

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Milwaukee, Wisc.)
“The solution is for legislators and physicians to show courage in the face of these pressures. Legislators and Congress should take appropriate action to ensure that the drugs are available to those who need them but aren’t overprescribed. And physicians, knowing the risk, should be more reticent in prescribing these drugs.”

The Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City, Utah)
“As long as there is pain, there will be a market for painkillers. But we have the power to ease the addictive, often deadly, side-effects of one kind of drug if we will stand up to the legal drug pushers at least as forcefully as we fight the illegal ones.”

The Vindicator (Youngstown, Ohio)
“An exhaustive, revealing two-part investigative series by the Associated Press and The Center for Public Integrity must not go unnoticed by federal and state lawmakers...A full-fledged congressional inquiry based on the AP/CPI investigative series is warranted.”

The Greenwood Commonwealth (Greenwood, Miss.)
“It is improbable — given as much money is at stake — that the pharmaceutical industry will police itself. And while medical groups are aware of the problem, they have their own issues trying to rein in doctors who overprescribe painkillers. That's why outside regulation is needed. Getting that done is difficult, though, when those who are fueling the problem have the resources to kill proposed reforms.”

Elko Daily Free Press (Elko, Nev.)
“There was a big fight in Congress this summer over additional funding to address the problem, but we think more progress would be made simply by following the money and drying up the flow that has allowed this manufactured epidemic to thrive as vigorously as the illegal heroin trade.”

Times Union (Albany, N.Y.)
“This sort of influence-peddling would not be so effective in a better regulated, more transparent political system. Yet talk of reforms – like lower limits on political spending and greater disclosure of who is really behind efforts to influence legislation and government policy – inevitably devolves into partisan gainsaying and ideological posturing. Too many well-heeled special interests don’t want to lose access to legislators and other decision makers; too many politicians don’t want to stop the gravy train. All this is not so abstract in the context of something like the opioid crisis, in which one of the nation’s most profitable industries has used the power of money to the detriment of tens of thousands of patients and tens of thousands more of their parents, brothers, sisters, children and friends who have watched them descend into addiction and, often, die.”

The Daily Item (Sunbury, Pa.)
“If the pharmaceutical companies are sincere with their promise to be part of the solution, then they should put some of their money into successful programs, not just into the pockets of politicians. The real measure of success will be when the body count drops.”

Chris Tomlinson, Houston Chronicle business columnist (Houston, Texas)
“Spending $140 million to keep lawmakers from addressing a public health crisis is not acceptable behavior, even if the forum is playing by the rules. This what infuriates Americans about big business, a complete disregard for common decency. The Pain Care Forum needs to disband, and companies that make painkillers need to join the effort to stop the opioid epidemic that is killing more than 18,000 people a year. That means selling less opioids, not more.”

 

Demonstrators march along Main Street in Abingdon, Va., on July 20, 2007, to raise awareness about the abuse of OxyContin. Since 2000, prescription opioid abuse has claimed the lives of 165,000 Americans, according to federal estimates.The Center for Public Integrityhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/center-public-integrityhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/09/28/20264/politics-pain-series-prompts-calls-action

Clinton-supporting super PACs target Latino voters

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About one of every nine voters this fall is expected to be Latino. In critical swing states like Colorado, Florida and Nevada, that percentage is likely to be even higher.

That’s why Democrat Hillary Clinton and her allies are taking increased measures to mobilize Latino voters this year.

Since January, the Clinton campaign has sponsored more than 2,500 Spanish language TV ads, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of data provided by ad tracking firm Kantar Media, which monitors ads on broadcast television and national — but not local — cable. In Nevada alone, about one of every eight TV ads Clinton’s campaign has broadcast so far this month has been in Spanish.

Clinton herself has advocated for comprehensive immigration reform, including a pathway for citizenship for undocumented immigrants in the country illegally.

Republican Donald Trump, meanwhile, has called for the construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, mass deportations and the end of birthright citizenship. He’s also called Mexican immigrants criminals and “rapists.” None of his campaign’s TV ads have been in Spanish.

By contrast, President Barack Obama aired more than 13,200 TV ads in Spanish during his 2012 re-election bid, while his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, aired about 3,700, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of data provided by Kantar Media/CMAG.

This year, Clinton’s also getting a super PAC assist reaching out to potential Latino voters.

Enter the Latino Victory Fund and El Super PAC Voto Latino, which have taken to the TV airwaves this month and are working in partnership with the main pro-Clinton super PAC, Priorities USA Action. A coordinated ad blitz by the three super PACs has been concentrated on the battleground states of Colorado, Florida and Nevada.

The ads’ sponsors

The Latino Victory Fund was formed in May of 2014 as a traditional political action committee to support Latino candidates. Five months later, it transformed itself into a hybrid super PAC— meaning it could still directly donate to candidates from its PAC account, but it could also collect unlimited funds in a separate account to produce political ads.

Meanwhile, El Super PAC Voto Latino was launched last month, according to paperwork filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Who’s behind it?

The Latino Victory Fund is the political arm of the Latino Victory Project, a nonprofit advocacy group founded by actress Eva Longoria and Texas businessman Henry R. Muñoz III.

While officially describing itself as nonpartisan — it is dedicated to building “political power within the Latino community to ensure the voices of Latinos are reflected at every level of government” — the Latino Victory Project’s efforts have largely aided Democrats and its leaders are decidedly partisan.

For his part, Muñoz currently serves as the finance chairman of the Democratic National Committee. And Longoria, who raised more than $500,000 for President Barack Obama’s reelection, herself donated nearly $67,000 in March to the Hillary Victory Fund — a joint fundraising committee that benefits Clinton’s presidential campaign, the DNC and Democratic parties in dozens of states.

Furthermore, four influential Democrats serve as the “honorary co-chairs” of the Latino Victory Fund: U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas, New York City Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, billionaire hedge fund manager Tom Steyer and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Cesar Blanco, a Democratic member of the Texas House of Representatives, is the Latino Victory Fund’s interim director. He took over the job after the Clinton campaign, in June, hired its president, Cristobal Alex, to be Clinton’s national deputy director of voter outreach and mobilization.

At the same time, Maria Teresa Kumar is the president of El Super PAC Voto Latino. A longtime political commentator on MSNBC, Kumar also serves on the national boards of Planned Parenthood, EMILY’s List and the Latino Leaders Network.

Other people behind El Super PAC Voto Latino include Ingrid Duran, the former head of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, and Robert Raben, who served as the assistant attorney general for legislative affairs under President Bill Clinton.

Both Duran and Raben are also registered lobbyists in Washington, D.C. Duran co-founded D&P Creative Strategies in 2004, and her clients include Comcast and Microsoft. Raben founded the Raben Group in 2002, and his clients include Airbnb, Google and MasterCard.

Duran told the Center for Public Integrity that she became involved with El Super PAC Voto Latino because “the attacks on our community have been appalling.”

Money in

Campaign finance records show that the Latino Victory Fund has raised more than $1.1 million since January 2015.

The biggest donor to the super PAC? The political action committee of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, called the CHC BOLD PAC, which has donated about $340,000.

The Latino Victory Fund’s other top donors include Steyer, the billionaire hedge fund manager and environmentalist, who has given $250,000, as well as a number of labor unions, including the Service Employees Industrial Union ($100,000) and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union ($55,000).

Additionally, the pro-Clinton super PAC Priorities USA Action has donated $40,000 to the Latino Victory Fund, all of which came last month.

Meanwhile, it’s not yet clear how much money El Super PAC Voto Latino has at its disposal. The super PAC won’t file its first campaign finance report that details its fundraising until next month.

Money out

The Latino Victory Fund has spent nearly $100,000 on anti-Trump ads, and the upstart El Super PAC Voto Latino has already spent about $274,000 on anti-Trump ads, according to campaign finance filings.

The Latino Victory Fund has also spent a combined $466,000 boosting five U.S. House candidates so far this year: Democrats Nanette Barragan of California, Lou Correa of California, Adriano Espaillat of New York, Joseline Peña-Melnyk of Maryland and Darren Soto of Florida.

The Latino Victory Fund entered September with about $173,000 in the bank.

For its part, Priorities USA Action entered September with about $41.5 million in the bank.

Why it matters

The Latino Victory Fund and El Super PAC Voto Latino — in partnership with Priorities USA Action — are expected to continuing running TV ads through Election Day.

The three groups last month announced a joint $3 million operation targeting voters in Colorado, Florida and Nevada.

Justin Barasky, a spokesman for Priorities USA Action, told the Center for Public Integrity that Latino voters in these states are “incredibly important,” which is why the super PAC is “doing so much to make sure these voters come to the polls and vote for Hillary Clinton.”

David Damore, a professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a senior analyst at Latino Decisions, a polling and research company, agrees.

Without “an overwhelming majority” of Latino voters, Damore told the Center for Public Integrity, Clinton, simply put, “can’t win.”

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials in June 2015.Michael Beckelhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/michael-beckelhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/09/28/20265/clinton-supporting-super-pacs-target-latino-voters

Big business continues trend toward political transparency

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Monster Energy’s slogan may be “unleash the beast,” but its parent company appears to suffer from scaredy-cat syndrome when it comes to political transparency.

Corona, California-based Monster Beverage Corp. isn’t alone: about one-in-10 of the nation’s largest companies volunteer almost no information about their politicking, according to a new study on corporate political transparency by the Center for Political Accountability, a nonpartisan transparency advocacy group, and the Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. 

Well-known companies such as Advance Auto Parts Inc., Expedia Inc., M&T Bank Corp., Netflix Inc., Paycheck Inc., Urban Outfitters Inc., United Rentals Inc. and Berkshire Hathaway, billionaire Warren Buffett’s holding company, also received zero points on the annual index's 70-point scale that measures companies’ political disclosure practices and published accountability policies.

American Airlines Group Inc., Whole Foods Market Inc., Macy’s Inc., Dollar General Corp. and Hasbro Inc. didn’t fare much better, with scores in the single digits.

In contrast, seven companies received 68 points — nearly perfect scores. Among them: railroad company CSX Corp., power company PG&E Corp. and medical products firm Becton, Dickinson and Co.

Coca-Cola Co., computer chip maker Intel Corp., tobacco conglomerate Altria Group Inc., food giant General Mills and financial institutions Wells Fargo & Co., Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. likewise performed well.

Such high scorers helped drive what study authors say is a years-long trend toward increased corporate political transparency, despite calls from prominent business groups — notably, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — for corporations to not reveal more information than what’s legally required of them.

Across 24 categories, the Center for Political Accountability/Zicklin index awards points to companies that, for example, voluntarily disclose contributions to certain nonprofit groups, publish policies that govern political expenditures from its corporate treasury and reveal money spent to influence state-level ballot initiatives.

From 2015 to 2016, the average corporate disclosure score rose slightly, according to the study. Similarly, the number of S&P 500 companies publicly disclosing their political spending and public policy priorities increased from 2015 to 2016.

Sector-wise, utilities, heath care, food/staples and telecom outfits performed best.

Why should consumers and voters care?

“It shows more and more companies value sunlight and are taking peoples’ concerns about secrecy seriously,” said Bruce Freed, president of the Center for Political Accountability. “Corporations are becoming much more sensitive to the risks that they face when they aren’t more open.”

CSX’s index-leading political disclosure “is part of its commitment to transparent reporting, corporate social responsibility and accountability to its shareholders” and “shows our commitment to transparent business and reporting practices,” company spokeswoman Melanie Cost told the Center for Public Integrity.

Said PG&E spokeswoman Lynsey Paulo: "We take this benchmarking tool, and its results, seriously. We believe it is important to participate in the political process on behalf of our customers, employees and business, and it is equally important that we comply with the law and that we are transparent."

Several companies improved their scores by at least 50 points from the Center for Political Accountability/Zicklin’s 2015 study to the 2016 study.

They include Edwards Lifesciences Corp., Electronic Arts Inc., T. Rowe Price Group Inc., Apache Corp. and Nordstrom Inc.

But plenty of companies show little interest in revealing more about how they’re attempting to influence politics.

For example, just 35 companies surveyed — fewer than one in 10 — disclose payments to both 501(c)(4) “social welfare” nonprofits and 501(c)(6) nonprofit business associations.

Such nonprofits may spend unlimited amounts of money advocating for or against political candidates, but unlike bona fide political groups, aren’t by law required to publicly reveal their donors.  

As it has since the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the issue of secret corporate contributions to politically active nonprofit groups — “dark money” to detractors — has enraged mainly liberal-leaning politicians who in some cases have been targets of it.The Center for Public Integrity contacted more than 20 companies, including Monster Beverage Corp., that received an index score of zero. Most either declined to comment or did not return messages.

But representatives of a few low-scoring companies explained they don’t disclose their politicking simply because they don’t do much of it — if any at all.

Paychex, which earned a zero, doesn’t make political contributions or engage in lobbying activities, so it “has never done any public disclosure because we don’t engage in activities that require registration or disclosure,” spokeswoman Laura Saxby Lynch explained.

The political activity of asset management company Legg Mason Inc., which also scored a zero, is “very limited,” spokeswoman Mary K. Athridge said. “As such, we have not encountered particular interest or questions about political activity and spending … the industry largely doesn’t do it, and stakeholders aren’t that focused on it.”

Spokeswoman Anne Marie Squeo said Netflix's political spending "is quite small relative to most companies reviewed by the Center for Political Accountability," and that her company, which distributes the political drama "House of Cards" among other popular shows, complies with federal disclosure requirements.

American Airlines “strives to be a leader on public policy issues, and we are proud of the work we do in Washington,” airline spokesman Matt Miller said.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has poured tens of millions of dollars into backing or attacking U.S. congressional candidates this year, has for years criticized the Center for Political Accountability/Zicklin study as a tool for activist investors to “harass and pressure” companies from engaging in political debates.

U.S. Chamber spokeswoman Blair Latoff Holmes panned this year's study as she did last year when the Center for Political Accountability released its 2015 study.

"Let’s be absolutely clear — the call for more 'disclosure' is not coming from your typical investor, as unsuccessful vote after unsuccessful vote on shareholder proposals plainly show," she said. "Rather, disclosure is a tool employed by activist investors — in coordination with CPA and other ideologically aligned parties — to generate information about a company’s lobbying and political activities that can then be used by those same activist investors to harass and pressure the company into disengaging from political debates. We don’t think this is good for businesses or, ultimately, the millions of investors who do not share the activists’ extreme and narrowly focused political agenda."

Freed, of the Center for Political Accountability, expressed hope that next year’s study will reveal even more corporations making public their political activities and policies — regardless of what the U.S. Chamber has to say.

“With corporations, there is some keeping-up-with-the-Joneses involved,” he said.

Actress Tia Barr holds Monster Energy drink at the Fender Music lodge during the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 19, 2013, in Park City, Utah.Dave Levinthalhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/dave-levinthalhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/09/28/20276/big-business-continues-trend-toward-political-transparency

America’s super polluters

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This story was produced in collaboration with The Weather Channel and USA TODAY.

EVANSVILLE, Indiana—To see one of the country’s largest coal-fired power plants, head northwest from this Ohio River city. Or east, because there’s another in the region. In fact, nearly every direction you go will take you to a coal plant — seven within 30 miles.

Collectively they pump out millions of pounds of toxic air pollution. They throw off greenhouse gases on par with Hong Kong or Sweden.

Industrial air pollution — bad for people’s health, bad for the planet — is strikingly concentrated in America among a small number of facilities like those in southwest Indiana, according to a nine-month Center for Public Integrity investigation.

The Center, which merged two federal datasets to create an unprecedented picture of air emissions, found that a third of the toxic air releases in 2014 from power plants, factories and other facilities came from just 100 complexes out of more than 20,000 reporting to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. A third of the greenhouse-gas emissions reported by industrial sites came from just 100, too. Some academics have a name for them: super polluters.

Twenty-two sites appeared on both lists. They include ExxonMobil’s massive refinery and petrochemical complex in Baytown, Texas, and a slew of coal-fired power plants, from FirstEnergy’s Harrison in West Virginia to Conemaugh in Pennsylvania, owned by companies including NRG Energy and PSEG. Four are in a single region — southwest Indiana. Together, owners of these 22 sites reported profits in excess of $58 billion in 2014.

Thomas O. McGarity, a law professor and regulatory scholar at the University of Texas at Austin, said the Center’s findings show that “a lot of the problem is isolated, and what we need to do is focus in on these plants.”

The EPA says it’s doing that. In a written statement, the agency said its sustained emphasis on the electric power sector has led to “dramatically” lower emissions from power plants since 1990 — “while the U.S. economy has continued to grow” — and it is working to get further improvements.

But not all the states are on board. Indiana is one of 27 suing the EPA over its Clean Power Plan, which would require reductions in climate-altering greenhouse-gas pollution from electric utilities. Indiana is also among the states that tried to block a federal rule to reduce emissions of dangerous metals and acid gases from coal- and oil-fired power plants. Its governor, Mike Pence — Donald Trump’s running mate — is a pro-coal, climate-change skeptic who says the costs of shifting to cleaner energy sources are too high.

Maintaining the status quo has costs as well: bad air that threatens health and fuels global warming. More toxic pollution from utility coal plants was sent into the air within 30 miles of Evansville than around any other mid-sized or large American city in 2014, a Center analysis shows. That same 30-mile radius accounted for the most greenhouse gases released by U.S. coal plants that year around any city.

Across the country, the top 100 facilities releasing greenhouse gases — almost all of them coal plants — collectively added more than a billion metric tons to the atmosphere in 2014. That’s the equivalent of a year’s worth of such emissions from 219 million passenger vehicles — nearly twice as many as the total number registered nationwide.

The top 100 for toxic air emissions vented more than 270 million pounds of chemicals in 2014. The vast majority of these chemicals have known health risks, according to the EPA; they can target the lungs, the brain or other organs, and some can affect the development of children born and unborn.

Eight of the super polluters have closed. The rest, including all four in Indiana, still operate.

Tina Dearing, 48, from Huntingburg, Indiana, was unexpectedly widowed in March when her 57-year-old husband died of a heart attack. Coronary artery disease, the death certificate says. Two months later, researchers published the results of a 10-year study that showed why previous investigations kept finding shorter lifespans in areas with poorer air quality: pollution appears to accelerate harmful deposits in the arteries that cause nearly all heart attacks and most strokes.

Dearing’s family lives northeast of Evansville in a community within 30 miles of two of Indiana’s largest coal plants. She knows a variety of factors can play a role in an early death, but believes dirty air contributed in her husband’s case.

“The air quality stinks,” she said.

The Center, which relied on the EPA’s most recent final Toxics Release Inventory data to track total chemical releases, found that the people who live within three miles of the top 100 polluters are in some ways a cross-section of America: spread across half the states, all races, young and old, in a wide range of income brackets.

But more of them are poor or African-American than the country as a whole, data from the U.S. Census Bureau show. For instance, nearly 90 percent of the thousands living within three miles of ExxonMobil’s refinery and chemical plant in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, are black and about a third are below the poverty line. The complex, which ExxonMobil said has reduced total emissions over 40 percent since 1990, released more than 2.6 million pounds of chemicals to the air in 2014, including hydrogen cyanide— which can cause headaches, confusion and nausea — and known carcinogens such as benzene.

Mary B. Collins with the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry and two other researchers found similar disparities in a sophisticated analysis this year, writing that “there exists a class of hyper-polluters — the worst-of-the-worst — that disproportionately expose communities of color and low income populations to chemical releases.”

While people nearby are the most affected, these facilities can degrade air far afield. Almost all the states with top toxic-air emitters send a significant amount of pollution to downwind states, according to EPA analyses — in some cases reaching people hundreds of miles away.

Some of the companies that own the nation’s biggest polluters say their emissions break no rules and are simply a reflection of a facility’s size. Others point out that they’ve ratcheted down releases in recent years, including after 2014. FirstEnergy said it has shuttered coal plants accounting for more than 5,000 megawatts of power generation since 2012.

NRG, which owns or co-owns several coal plants on the top-100 lists, said its toxic air emissions are falling, including a sharp drop in mercury in 2015 to comply with new federal regulations, and it has set aggressive climate goals — a 50-percent cut in greenhouse gases by 2030, 90 percent by 2050 — that would mean a major overhaul in the way it makes power.

“Things can’t continue on the same path as they have for decades,” Bruno Sarda, NRG’s chief sustainability officer, said of businesses worldwide. “More and more of our new revenue is coming from much lower-carbon sources.”

But coal is far from dead in America. And the tug-of-war over the future of electric power generation will affect everyone, some more than others. The influential utility industry. Blue-collar energy workers, from coal miners to solar-panel installers. Neighbors of coal plants. Electricity customers. People suffering from the lengthening pollen season, dangerous heat waves, devastating floods and other effects of global warming.

To watch this unfold, come to one of the biggest coal-burning states, a place with no renewable-energy requirements. No mandatory energy-efficiency targets to cut back on unnecessary, money-wasting usage. No contingency plan for climate-change repercussions, which so worried local university researchers that a group of them sent a letter to the governor last fall pleading with him to call on their expertise — a letter that went unanswered.

Come to Indiana.

Living and dying in Evansville

Kavon Cooper’s asthma, his mother says, “was a constant battle.” If he spent too much time outside in Evansville, he needed medicine to breathe. If he went to a friend’s house, he never knew if he’d have to go home in a hurry. Sometimes his asthma attacks were so bad that he ended up in the hospital. So he stayed inside as much as possible with the windows closed, playing video games, dreaming of testing them for a living someday.

For all that, the 12-year-old seemed to be getting better. It was a shock when he collapsed and died at home last year, lying in the hallway by the bathroom as his nebulizer ran in his bedroom. The coroner ruled that he’d suffered an acute asthma attack.

His mother, Kris Dasch, 47, couldn’t understand what had happened. The only explanation she got was that pollen had spiked.

So had air pollution. But no one had told her that.

Levels of toxic specks called fine particles— typically formed by emissions from power plants, vehicles and factories — leapt up 20 micrograms per cubic meter the previous day, according to the air monitor less than a half-mile from the family’s home. They began to ease overnight, then jumped another 9 micrograms shortly before his death. Levels of sulfur dioxide, another common power-plant pollutant, also rapidly increased at the same time that morning.

These are conditions that researchsuggests can trigger a severe, even deadly, lung reaction. No one had told Dasch that, either. No doctor had ever discussed air quality with her, other than the effects of pollen.

Dr. Carrie A. Redlich, director of the Yale Occupational and Environmental Medicine Program, suspects that’s almost always the case. Many physicians don’t think about the connection between air pollution and health, Redlich said. They might not know, for example, that research suggests tainted air and allergens such as pollen work like a one-two punch — together, the reaction is worse.

That both spiked in the lead-up to Kavon’s death makes them sound to Redlich like contributing factors. “That is an important interaction,” she said.

Now that air quality is on her mind, Dasch makes connections that didn’t stick out before. How well Kavon did on the rare occasions he took a trip outside the region. How a neighbor mentioned that her son’s asthma didn’t bother him as much when they lived in Arizona. How “there’s a lot of illness, a lot of sickness in this area.”

Vanderburgh County, which includes Evansville, has lower life expectancy compared with peer counties across the country and a higher rate of adults reporting fair-to-poor health, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Community Health Status Indicators. Some key influencers — poverty, unemployment and obesity — are actually better here than in most peer counties. What’s counterbalancing it are higher rates of smoking and air pollution.

Researchers already knew that poor air quality impairs children’s lung development, but studies in the past few years have also suggested multiple in utero complications such as autism spectrum disorder, found a possible connection with childhood psychiatric conditions and linked exposure to damage that can trigger neurological problems in old age. In 2013, the World Health Organization declared that air pollution causes cancer. Inflammation kicked off by the pollutants seems to be the common denominator.

“You add air pollution together with a lot of smokers, you are adding a lot of disease, premature death and costs that the state of Indiana incurs,” said Dr. Stephen Jay, a pulmonologist and emeritus professor of public health at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis who has pressed for a shift to clean energy.

Lori Salma, a preschool teacher from Evansville, says she is struck by the number of young children using lung medication. She and her 14-year-old son both have asthma, and there are days “when I feel winded after being outside for longer than 15 minutes.”

She’s frustrated that for all they’ve done in their house to try to reduce flare-ups — no carpets, no curtains, no pets and, of course, no smoking — “there’s nothing we can do to control the air that we breathe.”

Tina Dearing said her late husband, Vincent, would come home to Huntingburg from business trips and complain that inhaling the local air felt like someone standing on his chest. Her oldest daughter had trouble breathing as an infant. And she wonders whether the air contributed to her daughter’s daughter, now 2, being born so small — not preterm, but just 5 1/2 pounds. (Researchsuggests that air pollution can decrease birth weight.)

“That’s why we limit our time outside,” Dearing said.

Rose Hoffman and her family lived in a community near Dearing's for years before moving in 2012 to Champaign, Illinois. Air quality was not the reason — in fact, when she occasionally heard bad news about it, “I didn’t want to believe it because we enjoyed living there so very much.” But what happened after they left, she said, “was stunning.”

Her nighttime wheezing stopped. Her youngest daughter no longer coughs at bedtime. The awful migraines besetting two of her children went away almost entirely and hers eased. Her husband, a doctor, saw his asthma symptoms improve.

Hoffman, 45, had assumed genetics, or being the child of smokers, explained her severe lung damage following a bout with pneumonia in Indiana — her doctors had no idea why it happened. Now, she can’t help but think that air could have played a role in that, too.

The state of the air

Southwest Indiana doesn’t look like an industry stronghold. Evansville, population 120,000, is the biggest city by far amid the rippling farmland. Rural Kentucky is just across the Ohio River, while the state capital of Indianapolis — and the massive steelmaking complexes in northern Indiana — are hours and a world away.

But this is coal country, where the state’s 6,500 mining jobs are concentrated. Six coal plants operate here: Gibson, Rockport, Petersburg, Warrick, A.B. Brown and F.B. Culley, all but one within 30 miles of Evansville, which is also near two coal plants in Kentucky. A large piece of southwest Indiana power travels on transmission lines to be used elsewhere because the plants make more than 40 percent of the state’s electricity in an area with just 6 percent of its people.

They also make a disproportionate share of the pollution. The plants accounted for a quarter of Indiana air emissions reported to the EPA’s toxics inventory in 2014, a remarkable concentration in the most manufacturing-intensive state in the nation. Within the seven most southwestern counties here, three-quarters of the air pollution recorded in the inventory came from the six coal plants. And that doesn’t count the effects of the Kentucky plants.

Ask Mark Maassel about the air and he’ll recount the billions of dollars in environmental controls his members have installed over the last decade, some required by federal rules, some by EPA enforcement actions. He’s president of the Indiana Energy Association, a trade group for investor-owned utilities, and he sees “very significant changes and improvements in the environment of the state.”

Power plants’ sulfur dioxide emissions dropped 64 percent statewide between 2000 and 2014, he said. Nitrogen dioxide, which harms the lungs and contributes to ozone, often called smog, fell 69 percent, he said. As some coal plants shut down, carbon dioxide— which warms the atmosphere — also declined.

That’s meant cleaner air. Evansville-area concentrations of fine particles dropped nearly 30 percent over the past decade, EPA monitoring figures show.

But the air here is still worse than in most of the country.

Vanderburgh County had higher levels of fine particles than nearly 90 percent of the U.S. counties with air monitors from 2013 to 2015, EPA records of average annual concentrations show. Vanderburgh was nearly on par with Manhattan, even though that New York City borough has nine times as many people and a lot more particle-spewing vehicles.

Despite that — and despite some power plants here runningafoul of EPA rules in recent years, including for sulfur dioxide — the region isn’t violating federal air-quality standards for fine particles.

“The good news is, as of today, the entire monitoring network within the southwest Indiana area does demonstrate compliance,” said Scott Deloney, air programs branch chief at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.

The bad news: The standard for particles is based on total amount, but research is finding they aren’t equally unhealthy. The most toxic ones, a 2015 study by 11 researchers in the U.S. and Canada suggested, come from burning coal.

What’s more, researchers keep finding harm from fine particles at levels below the standard, which the EPA is reviewing to determine if it’s still appropriate. A new study led by a Johns Hopkins University researcher that focused on Boston — with markedly better particle levels than Evansville — found an association between that air pollutant and intrauterine inflammation, a key risk factor for premature birth.

In March, a New York University study estimated the share of premature births that can be attributed to fine particles. Indiana was second-highest in the country.

Premature birth can have lifelong consequences for children and is the biggest cause of infant mortality — a challenge for Indiana, tied for ninth-worst on infant death among U.S. states. Some studies have specifically linked air pollution to infant death rates.

Dr. Edward McCabe, chief medical officer at the infant-focused March of Dimes, says the evidence of pregnancy harms is now substantial enough that action — not simply further study — is required: “We need to do something about it.”

But Indiana officials, focused on more widely understood risk factors such as smoking, which the state has high rates of, haven’t delved into pollution as a possible contributor. A 2014 state report aimed at improving infant survival rates didn’t mention air quality at all.

Asked about it, Indiana State Department of Health spokeswoman Jennifer O’Malley said by email that “outdoor air quality is beyond the scope of ISDH and was not a consideration” in its infant-mortality work. She referred questions to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, which said it has no public-health specialists on staff.

Dr. Norma Kreilein, a pediatrician in southwest Indiana who has tried to draw attention to environmental-health problems she sees in the region, is fed up with the state.

“They’ve refused to connect pollution to public health,” Kreilein said.

A spokeswoman for Pence did not answer questions about the matter or anything else for this story, except for one asking for his perspective on coal.

“This abundant Hoosier resource supports over 26,000 Hoosier jobs and has historically provided Indiana’s economy with competitive electricity prices,” the spokeswoman, Kara Brooks, said by email. “Unfortunately, President Obama’s Clean Power Plan will drive up electricity prices, threaten electricity reliability, and put coal miners out of work.  That is bad for Indiana and bad for America.”

Pro-coal state

As Pence himself put it last year, Indiana is a “proud pro-coal state,” and its energy use reflects that. It relies on coal for 75 percent of its electricity, at a time when the national average has fallen to 33 percent.

Pence gave up his shot at re-election this fall to run with Trump in the presidential election. The Democrat in the governor’s race? A former coal lobbyist.

Pence’s popular Republican predecessor also was pro-coal, and supported a coal-gasification power plant project that went way over budget. But former Gov. Mitch Daniels’ administration also started a mandatory energy-efficiency program to cut back on waste and crafted rules to allow more people to go solar.

The efficiency program is gone now, replaced with a law that sets no reduction targets for utilities and has saved less energy, according to the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance. State lawmakers tried last year to allow utilities to raise costs for customers with solar panels, stepping back only after they were flooded with complaints — solar advocates fear another attempt will come. And then there’s Indiana’s challenge with other states to the Clean Power Plan, now under a U.S. Supreme Court stay as a lower court considers the arguments.

That hasn’t kept change from happening, because national forces pressuring coal — cheap natural gas, falling costs for renewables, federal pollution rules — are here, too. As recently as 2009, more than 90 percent of Indiana’s electricity was coal-fired.

But if a complete energy transformation is inevitable, as some in Indiana assume, getting there quickly is not. There’s so much farther to go here than in most places.

Just a handful of states get a larger share of their electricity from coal, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration figures, and none is as populous as Indiana. The only place that burns more tons of coal for power is Texas, which makes four times the electricity and gets a lot of it from natural gas.

Indiana made 16 percent of its electricity from natural gas last year. That fuel’s unhealthy air emissions when burned are sharply lower than coal’s. (Natural-gas power plants aren’t tracked by the Toxics Release Inventory, which exempts certain operations from otherwise fairly broad coverage.) Gas plants also release 40 to 50 percent less greenhouse gases than equally sized coal plants, though that doesn’t include potent methane leaks before the fuel arrives on site.

Then there’s wind and solar, which account for about 5 percent of Indiana’s electricity. Because of its lopsided energy profile, Indiana gets bigger health and environmental benefits from new wind turbines than any other state, and among the biggest from new solar panels, according to a 2013 study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. A 2015 study led by a Stanford University researcher suggested that Indiana would save money by switching to renewables for all its energy needs.

But if Indiana’s rate of change over the last 10 years continues, power plants here will burn coal for decades to come.

“It will be a gradual thing,” predicted A. David Stippler, Indiana’s utility consumer counselor. “Hopefully a prudent, well-thought-out transition.”

The pollution field trip

From the back seat of a car, John Blair offered up acerbic commentary on the biggest air polluters of southwest Indiana. To your left, Duke Energy’s Gibson power plant and its coal-ash ponds. To your right, the little neighborhood where Duke provided bottled water to residents — later connecting them to a town water system — after the coal ash contaminated their wells.

Blair is a 69-year-old photographer with a 1978 Pulitzer Prize, but what he’s known for now is his work as volunteer head of a small environmental group in Evansville called Valley Watch. In decades of agitating for cleaner air and water, he’s often pressed the power plants — and their regulators — to do better.

The first stop on Blair’s tour was Gibson, fourth-largest coal plant in the country by capacity. Located 25 miles northwest of Evansville, it released 2.9 million pounds of air pollutants in 2014, according to the toxics inventory — much of that the lung irritant sulfuric acid, which the EPA says contributes to the formation of fine particles. Lead, arsenic and mercury, all neurotoxins, added up to a collective 1,000 pounds that year as well. And Gibson released more greenhouse gases than all but three other sites — not just power plants — nationwide.

“A godawful place,” Blair said, “that should be shut down.”

Duke spokeswoman Angeline Protogere said the company has “significantly reduced emissions” at Gibson, installing more than $1 billion in environmental controls there over the past 20 years. Some of that was negotiated in a 2014 settlement after the EPA said it found violations. Toxics Release Inventory air emissions at Gibson have shrunk by three-quarters since 2006, including a 19 percent drop between 2014 and 2015, Protogere said. Greenhouse-gas emissions dropped by a third over the last decade as power generation also fell.

Duke operates its plants “within EPA and state regulatory limits that are designed to protect public health and the environment,” she said.

After Gibson came a stop at plants in Kentucky. Then back over the Ohio River into Indiana to see the looming, 1,038-foot stack at Rockport, tied for tenth-largest coal plant in the country.

Owner American Electric Power was sued in 1999 by the EPA, environmental groups and eight states (Indiana not among them) over its emissions at coal plants. As part of the 2007 settlement, in which AEP did not admit any violations, the company was to have installed pollution controls on one Rockport unit by 2017 and on the other by 2019. But a 2013 rework of the settlement allowed the company to push that off another eight to nine years — in the meantime installing less-expensive, less-effective controls — in exchange for retiring units at coal plants outside the region.

AEP spokeswoman Tammy Ridout said by email that Rockport “is among the most efficient power plants in the world, which means it uses less coal, and has fewer emissions, for each kilowatt of electricity generated.” AEP, she added, has spent “hundreds of millions of dollars to reduce the emissions and environmental impact of the Rockport Plant,” including controls to cut mercury releases by about 80 percent.

Rockport, like Gibson, is on both of the Center’s top 100 lists, but neither is the region’s biggest producer of air pollution tracked by the Toxics Release Inventory. That distinction goes to the AES Corp.’s Petersburg power plant, 40 miles northeast of Evansville, which reported sending more chemicals into the air in 2014 than all but eight other sites nationwide. It’s also 35th for greenhouse gases. AES, hit with EPA violation notices for Petersburg in February and last year, said in a statement that it recently installed $450 million in pollution controls there, and “we comply with all environmental regulations.”

Blair’s tour ended seven miles southeast of Evansville. There, the Warrick power plant run by Alcoa sits near F.B. Culley, one of two coal plants owned by the locally based Vectren Corp., which also co-owns part of Warrick. Vectren says its fleet is among the best controlled in the Midwest. Alcoa, whose complex is the fourth in southwest Indiana to make both top 100 lists, said it closed its smelter there in March and is running its power plant less now as a result.

Blair paused at a cemetery overlooking the smokestacks.

“You know,” he’d said earlier in the trip, “we’re subsidizing the coal industry big time with our health.”

‘Incredibly powerful’ utilities

Indiana utilities have influenced the state’s power mix beyond building coal plants in the first place. They gave a thumbs-up to ending mandatory state energy-efficiency targets, calling the program “very costly” for customers despite consumer-advocate support. They pressed for extra solar charges, contending that rooftop-solar customers shift costs to everyone else because they aren’t paying their fair share. (Some of the independent research on this national debate is in agreement; much of it is not.)

The Indiana Energy Association says the state doesn’t need mandatory energy-efficiency or renewable-energy targets — now common across the country — because its members are making so much progress voluntarily. Indiana ranked 42nd on the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy’s most recent state scorecard. It ranked 24th last year for the share of electricity generated with wind or solar, far outstripped by top states — half of them in the Midwest.

Unless a state’s regulatory structure accounts for it, energy efficiency dampens utility revenues. So does customer-generated power. Some of Indiana’s utilities, including Evansville-based Vectren, specifically warn investors that these options are a financial threat.

Consumer groups think the utilities — not the coal companies — make the most effective advocates for Indiana’s energy status quo.

“They’ve always been an incredibly powerful voice in the General Assembly,” said Julia Vaughn, policy director for Common Cause Indiana, and “they’ve drug their feet on any type of movement away from coal.”

Electric utilities are among the largest corporate contributors to state elections in Indiana. They spent nearly 100 times as much as pro-environment groups in the past five years, and far more than mining companies, according to National Institute on Money in State Politics data.

Their state lobbying, which totals hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, includes spreading freebies around to legislators: dinners at McCormick & Schmick's, cocktails at Moe & Johnny’s, rounds of golf, tickets to Indiana Pacers and Indianapolis Colts games. Utilities are also the biggest donors to a state foundation that covers costs of economic-development travel for the governor.

Among the top recipients of their contributions and gifts is state Rep. Heath VanNatter, vice chair of the House Utilities and Energy Committee. He voted for the solar bill utilities wanted. He put forth the amendment that ultimately killed the energy-efficiency program. VanNatter, a Republican who represents an area north of Indianapolis, did not respond to requests for comment.

The utilities say the transition away from coal is best handled at a measured pace. They’re increasing their use of alternatives, but a post-coal Indiana is a “long, long ways into the future,” said Maassel, president of the Indiana Energy Association, which opposes the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.

“In anything, generally speaking, the faster you do it, the more expensive it becomes,” he said.

Maassel said more than 730,000 Indiana households have after-tax incomes under $30,000 and pay a sizable chunk of that for energy, so utilities are mindful of the cost of change.

“The existing facilities many times enjoy an economic advantage because they’ve been paid for to some level, and upgrading them with additional [pollution] controls … makes sense,” Maassel said.

This reasoning galls Kerwin Olson. He’s executive director of the Citizens Action Coalition, an Indianapolis consumer and environmental advocacy organization that often clashes with utilities. Olson contends that the most cost-effective option is to stop using coal sooner, not later.

He’s not talking about health and climate costs, though research suggests they make the true price of coal much higher. He means people’s actual utility bills.

“If you’re a utility company with a guaranteed rate of return and the more you spend, the more you make, you’re going to choose the most expensive option,” he said. “That’s why we continue to rely almost exclusively on coal.”

Olson said that while coal-plant pollution controls were once the cheapest option, that’s no longer the case. Efficiency and wind aren’t only cleaner but are also less expensive than coal, he said, while utility-scale solar is on par.

That’s clearly the case for new construction. Comparing piecemeal coal-plant retrofits to the alternatives is trickier, but David Schlissel with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, which advocates for reduced dependence on fossil fuels, said many coal plants are uneconomic even without additional controls.

Cheaper electricity from gas and renewables prevents them from selling as much to the grid as they once did. In states such as Indiana where utilities own the plants, he said, ratepayers take the hit.

Utility analyst Paul Patterson said power companies aren’t necessarily wedded to coal — some are moving aggressively on renewables. But it’s an industry that craves stability, said Patterson, with New York-based Glenrock Associates.

And in states that have staked out pro-coal positions, he said, “there may be a whole variety of political issues” at play. AEP tells investors in its most recent annual report that it wants to rely more on natural gas, energy efficiency and renewables “where there is regulatory support.”

‘Beyond Coal’ in coal country

In southwest Indiana, a future without coal would unpredictably reorder industries and people’s lives. Most of the state’s 6,500 mining jobs are here. They’re a small piece of the region’s employment — about 2 percent — but their reach is widened by the truck drivers, suppliers and others whose jobs depend on coal. Mining — like utilities — also provides some of the best-paying work. Property taxes from the power plant owners boost small-town budgets.

At the United Mine Workers of America’s old union hall in Boonville, 30 minutes from Evansville, a half-dozen retired coal miners gathered in June to talk about their anxieties — in particular their frustration that Congress had yet to vote on health and pension benefits endangered in the wake of coal-company bankruptcies. Some of the politicians loudly proclaiming themselves pro-coal are not beloved here.

All of these men worked at a Boonville surface mine that supplied a local coal plant and shut down in 1998, its closure blamed in part on the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990. Marvin Bruner, who worked there 31 years, had to retire early and accept a smaller pension. Randal Underhill had to travel all over on construction jobs for power plants, living out of motels. David Hadley had to work in Indianapolis during the week and come home to his family on weekends.

But in this group, opinions of air-pollution regulation are nuanced. They’ve seen coal companies open new mines in the area since the Clean Air Act amendments — non-union ones. Bil Musgrave, 60, who contracted a rare bile-duct cancer he links to working amid hazardous waste dumped in the Boonville mine, is a Sierra Club member.

He feels the tension between the benefits and problems coal brings. You can’t be a miner without it, and yet Musgrave knows it’s burned to make far more electricity than his region needs. The Toxics Release Inventory figures for a nearby coal plant, he said, show “an enormous amount of pollution.”

Hadley, co-chair of the United Mine Workers’ Indiana political action committee and a former state utility regulatory commissioner, wishes the industry had pushed full speed ahead on clean-technology innovations 15 years ago. What if carbon capture were economically viable and widely used today? What good does switching to natural gas do, he says, if it doesn’t solve the carbon problem?

Hadley fears coal’s window of opportunity is all but closed. That would leave transition away from it as the only option — “a transition with consequences.”

Wendy Bredhold, a local Sierra Club representative, is a former Evansville city councilwoman who thinks about economic consequences, too. As the nation increasingly turns to renewables and big companies demand them, what will that mean for local growth prospects? Wouldn’t coal workers do better, she says, if state officials helped people with the transition instead of fighting it?

The Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign has notched successes across the country, preventing new plants from opening and convincing regulators that old plants weren’t cost effective and should close. An Indianapolis coal plant it targeted switched to natural gas this year.

Now the group is campaigning in Evansville, trying to do this work in an area where, as Bredhold puts it, “coal runs generations deep.” An Evansville event the Sierra Club organized this month drew 100 people but also attracted angry Facebook comments.

Bredhold sees health problems and the accelerating effects of climate change, and doesn’t think she can afford to fail.

“We can’t wait until these plants just can’t run anymore,” she said. “I want this transition to be as easy as it can be for my community, but it’s one that has to happen.”

Secondhand pollution

The Cessna four-seater raced down a runway in Fort Meade, Maryland, loaded with equipment to measure ozone, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and greenhouse gases. For more than two decades, the Maryland Department of the Environment has tracked where pollutants come from. Agency scientists and university researchers have worked together to prove that other states routinely send unwanted contributions their way.

This isn’t academic. Pollution drifting over state lines complicates local efforts to clean the air.

Indiana — 280 miles from Maryland at its nearest point — is one of the culprits, according to both Maryland and EPA analyses.

Closer states have a bigger impact on Maryland, but the reach of Indiana’s pollutants is impressive. An EPA analysis for a 2011 rule to reduce power-plant emissions that exacerbate interstate problems with fine particles and ozone showed Indiana significantly contributing to air pollution in 11 states as far northeast as Connecticut. Only Kentucky topped that, at 12.

Traveling pollution is why nine East Coast states petitioned the EPA in 2013 to make nine other states — Indiana among them — do more on ozone. That petition is pending; some officials told the EPA this year that they plan to sue to force a decision.

Indiana and the other targeted states, in a 2014 letter to the EPA, said they’ve made “tremendous progress” on air quality and the petition’s arguments are out of date.

Dave Foerter, executive director of the Ozone Transport Commission, which advises the EPA on interstate smog problems, said meteorological conditions made for better years in 2013 and 2014. But generally, the wind blows Midwestern pollution to the Northeast, and that problem continues, he said.

“Indiana tends to throw emissions a long way,” Foerter said.

That’s less likely to come from its cars than its power plants, because the plants’ smokestacks give pollutants the height they need to travel, according to Maryland regulators. New York, analyzing 2015 power-plant releases, discovered that Indiana put out four times as much nitrogen oxides — a key ozone ingredient — for every megawatt-hour of electricity as New York did.

The Maryland Department of the Environment’s Tad Aburn isn’t suggesting car-heavy Maryland doesn’t make its own pollution. It does, affecting three other states, according to the EPA’s analysis. But Maryland’s power-plant rules are stricter than federal ones, and Aburn says the agency’s detective work shows the air improves when states work together.

“We need to do more,” he said.

The climate in Indiana

Climate change, like air pollution, requires group efforts to combat. But in Indiana — where industrial greenhouse-gas emissions are second only to Texas in the United States and exceed those from Israel, Greece and 185 other countries— the official position is inertia.

Pence once called climate change a “myth” and now positions himself as a skeptic: “I think the science is very mixed on the subject,” he told MSNBC in 2009, an assertion he repeated until he said on the campaign trail this week that human activities have "some impact" on climate. Not only is his state suing over the Clean Power Plan, but he also vowed that Indiana won’t strategize to reduce greenhouse gases even if the rule does take effect. He’s an enthusiastic supporter of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group of companies and conservative lawmakers — popular in the Indiana state house — that has encouraged anti-climate initiatives.

Polling shows more than half of Hoosiers say climate change is indeed happening, though, and that includes some local officials. Jim Brainard, a Republican from the Indianapolis suburb of Carmel, is among the Indiana mayors who see economic opportunities in the shifting energy landscape and are taking action in their cities.

But a variety of Indiana residents think statewide efforts are crucial, and they’re pressing officials to do something. What’s driving them is the knowledge that the science isn’t mixed on whether the world is warming, whether humans are largely to blame and whether that’s bad for us. The major point of debate among scientists now is just how bad it will be.

Last fall Gabriel Filippelli coordinated a letter, signed by 23 Indiana academics, that urged Pence to draw on the educators’ in-state expertise on climate and its impacts. It recommended a plan for “mitigation and adaptation strategies … to protect energy and transportation infrastructure, the health of the public and economic development.”

“It actually wasn’t intended to be political, but rather, ‘You have a lot of resources right here in Indiana, in your back yard, people who are expert in this and can give you better advice than maybe you’re receiving,’” said Filippelli, a professor of earth sciences at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

He said he got “zero” response from the Pence administration, which also did not answer the Center’s questions about the matter.

Anita Wylie is trying a different tack. She’s suing.

Wylie, an attorney who once worked for the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, is asking a trial court in Indianapolis to make the state develop a climate action plan. It’s something two-thirds of states now have, and it’s what the academics’ letter meant by mitigation and adaptation strategies.

A Pence spokeswoman did not respond to a question about the lawsuit, but the state argued in a motion to dismiss the case that it is not required to write a climate plan.

Wylie, now retired, says she is pursuing the lawsuit for her young grandsons and in memory of her father, a meteorologist deeply concerned about climate change.

“Indiana’s my state,” she said. “I’m embarrassed by the positions that the government’s taken.”

Hopkins reported this story with the support of the Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism and the National Fellowship, programs of the University of Southern California Center for Health Journalism.

Center for Public Integrity news developer Chris Zubak-Skees contributed to this story.

Seven coal-fired power plants operate within 30 miles of Evansville, Indiana, including two pictured here in the nearby community of Newburgh. Industrial air pollution is remarkably concentrated in the United States — a small percentage of sites is responsible for a third of the toxic-air and greenhouse-gas emissions reported by companies in 2014. Jamie Smith Hopkinshttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/jamie-smith-hopkinshttps://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/09/29/20248/america-s-super-polluters

Here are the super polluters

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Chris Zubak-Skeeshttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-zubak-skeeshttps://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/09/29/20271/here-are-super-polluters

New documentary traces controversial history of policing in schools

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In today’s America, police officers commonly roam the halls of schools, along with students, teachers, coaches and counselors. But it wasn’t always that way, and a growing number of critics argue that it shouldn’t be that way in the future. The roots and evolution of deploying police in schools, and the controversial consequences, are the subject of a provocative new documentary unveiled today by the online series Retro Report, in collaboration with the Center for Public Integrity. 

Former Attorney General Eric Holder is featured prominently in the 12-minute piece, which looks back at the roots of zero-tolerance policies in the 1980s — policies that gave rise to the presence of cops in school. Touted as critical to fending off school shootings, drug dealers and general disorder, zero-tolerance practices morphed over time into a blizzard of student suspensions and arrests for minor indiscretions, many of them involving manhandling of kids by over-aggressive cops.  Now some are wondering whether the zero-tolerance ‘solution’ is turning out to be worse than the problem it was designed to address.  

Retro Report is a nonprofit documentary project that looks back at a major news event or hot controversy through the lens of history, examining how legislative actions or societal reactions played out after the headlines faded. The school-policing documentary is posted on both the Retro Report website and The New York Timeswebsite, which carries Retro Report pieces and produces written stories that accompany the documentaries.  We’ve linked to the documentary here as well.

The Center for Public Integrity has investigated harsh school discipline policies and school policing extensively. In 2011, the Center looked at suspensions and expulsions of students—including a 10-year-old accused of sexual battery—amid broader concerns that children were being criminalized and pushed into a “school-to-prison pipeline.”

In 2012, the Center probed school policing in Los Angeles, where the nation’s biggest school police force was issuing thousands of court citations to mostly Latino and black kids in low-income schools. Nearly half the citations were going to middle-school students, often for loosely defined allegations of disturbing the peace or violating daytime curfew by arriving tardy. Juvenile court judges asked for limits on policing, and the district and police instituted reforms.

In 2013, the Center documented how students in rural California were expelled from regular school for disciplinary reasons—sometimes with police involvement—and forced to enroll in alternative schools so far from home they were forced into home study. An eighth-grader of 13 expelled for a year was given tasks on Post-it stamps and only one visit a week with a teacher.

The Center in 2013 also looked at reactions to the 2012 Newtown, Conn. school shooting, among them the assigning of more police to schools. In 2015 the Center investigated national school-policing data showing that Virginia led in student-police contact that disproportionately affects children with disabilities, and those who are black or Latino. In one case, a Virginia officer charged an 11-year-old autistic boy with disorderly conduct for kicking a trash can—and later arrested him after the student left his sixth-grade class without permission and resisted being restrained.   

In 2015, the Center examined the high rate of arrests of students in San Bernardino, Calif. in mostly lower-income schools, and the manhandling of students, including a teen with Down syndrome who was hogtied and forced into court twice before charges of resisting an officer were dropped.

The Center for Public Integrityhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/center-public-integrityhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/10/02/20284/new-documentary-traces-controversial-history-policing-schools

Drinks, dinners, junkets and jobs: how the insurance industry courts state commissioners

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When the Arkansas insurance commissioner weighed the merits of a hospital’s billing complaint against United Healthcare, her interactions with one of the nation’s largest health insurers extended far beyond her department’s hearing room.

During months of deliberations, Commissioner Julie Benafield Bowman met repeatedly with United Healthcare lawyers and lobbyists over lunch and drinks at venues such as the Country Club of Little Rock.

“I had a blast with you Monday night,” Benafield emailed United Healthcare lawyer Bill Woodyard, himself a former state insurance commissioner. “Thank you so much for entertaining us.”

Commissioner Benafield ultimately decided the case in United Healthcare’s favor — a 2008 ruling that stood to save the company millions of dollars. Nearly two years later, by the time a judge vacated the commissioner’s orders because there was “an appearance of impropriety in the proceedings,” Benafield had moved on: She was working for United Healthcare, having joined at least three of her predecessors representing insurers in Arkansas.

It’s a common career move. An investigation by the Center for Public Integrity found that half of the 109 insurance commissioners who have left their posts in the last decade have gone on to work for the industry they used to regulate — many leaving before their terms expire. Just two moved into consumer advocacy.

The revolving door swings in the other direction, too. For almost a year, Connecticut’s insurance commissioner was overseeing a merger involving a company where she had been a lobbyist. She recused herself last month amid a state ethics review.

Consumer advocates and some commissioners say the tight bond between regulators and industry — reinforced by campaign contributions, lavish dinners and the prospect of future employment — diminishes consumers’ voices as insurers press rate increases, shape regulations and scuttle investigations.

"It's very difficult at times to take a stand for consumers and have your voice heard," said Sally McCarty, a former Indiana commissioner and retired consumer advocate. "A lot of commissioners don't bother doing that for that reason — and they don't want to alienate the industry. ...Many people consider the job an audition for a better-paying job."

Insurers counter that the industry is highly regulated and their lobbying efforts are key to informing commissioners and other policymakers who oversee a part of the financial sector that touches millions of Americans’ lives.

“It is crucial for commissioners and other state and federal policymakers to understand the products and services we provide to people,” said Jack Dolan, a spokesman for the American Council of Life Insurers. “The information we provide and the perspectives we share must always be credible, trustworthy and follow the letter and spirit of the law.”

The stakes are enormous.

Because Congress has long left regulation of the insurance industry to the states, these little-known regulators, one per state, wield immense power over one of the largest segments of the U.S. economy. Charged chiefly with protecting consumers, commissioners review rate changes, investigate complaints and make sure insurers have enough money to pay claims.

Their decisions impact nearly every American. Most people are required to carry some form of insurance: auto, home, health. And yet, most commissioners operate outside public view, sometimes exempted from disclosure requirements that cover other state officials and often ignored by the decimated statehouse press corps.

'It impresses our clients'

The cozy relationships between regulators and industry were revealed in the Center for Public Integrity’s review of lobbyist reports, regulator financial disclosures, campaign finance records and more than 3,700 pages of emails obtained through open records laws in 13 states.

At least four commissioners had direct financial ties to the industry, with New Jersey’s top regulator selling his insurance stocks— prohibited investments under state ethics laws — only after an inquiry from the Center for Public Integrity.

Many more have accepted thousands of dollars in trips to lavish conferences sponsored by insurance companies and their trade groups in locales like The Sanctuary Hotel on Kiawah Island, South Carolina, and the Four Seasons in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Multiple commissioners rely on industry campaign contributions. Over the past decade, insurance companies and their employees were among the top political donors to commissioner candidates in at least six of the 11 states that elect regulators, according to data collected by the National Institute on Money in State Politics. Four of those 11 states ban contributions from the insurance industry.

Above all, there is a steady drumbeat of lobbyists wining and dining commissioners in state capitals. Often, the ones picking up the tab are former insurance commissioners themselves.

In Mississippi, George Dale, who served as commissioner for more than three decades before becoming a lobbyist, represents at least two insurers, including Allstate Corp. Eight years after he left office, department staffers still address him as “Commissioner,” keep him abreast of employees’ birthdays and retirements and share internal reports on legislative developments, according to the documents obtained by the Center for Public Integrity.

“It impresses our clients that we know the commissioner,” Dale wrote to Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney after a night out in 2010.

In an interview, Dale said that his close ties with the department were the inevitable result of his 32-year tenure. "They're friends of mine," he said. "If that's wrong, I'm guilty."

Allstate declined to comment.

Emails from other states also show personal relationships between regulators and insurance representatives, who share dinner invitations, family news and friendly sports wagers.

“It gets at the whole integrity of the process,” said Bob Hunter, a former Texas commissioner who runs the insurance program for the advocacy group Consumer Federation of America. “It raises among the public more and more doubt about the honesty of government and about government generally.”

Crossing the line

While several current and former insurance commissioners lament the outsize influence of the industry, they reject the notion that coziness breeds corruption. Instead, they see the close relationship with insurers as critical in a complex, fast-moving industry.

“Access gets you in the door,” said Chaney, the Mississippi commissioner. “But it doesn’t mean you’re going to get any better treatment than anybody else.”

To counter industry influence, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners pays for a small group of consumer advocates to attend its meetings, where regulators set insurance standards and draft model laws.

“State insurance regulators are committed to their shared dual responsibilities of consumer protection and the regulation of insurance company solvency,” said NAIC President John Huff, who is also director of the Missouri Department of Insurance.

But some commissioners have crossed the line.

In California, a commissioner resigned in 2000 after allegations that he drafted secret settlements with insurance companies that required the firms to contribute to his nonprofit foundations rather than face hundreds of millions of dollars in fines for mishandling claims. In Oklahoma, the top regulator resigned just before his impeachment trial in 2004 and was later convicted of embezzlement and pleaded no contest to accepting bribes from an insurance executive. In New Mexico, the insurance superintendent left office in 2006 after a series of controversies, including intervening in his daughter’s car accident claim to get a larger payout.

The consequences for consumers are even larger today as commissioners have seen their role expand in recent years; they are now the state gatekeepers for Obamacare, interpreting and implementing key portions of the federal health care law.

The regulators are also tasked with reviewing mergers, making sure the deals do not restrict competition and harm consumers. As millions of Americans face rising health care premiums, two such deals now under consideration — Aetna-Humana and Cigna-Anthem — would shrink the major players in U.S. health insurance from five to three.

‘We are in real danger here’

Often underfunded and understaffed, commissioners face a number of political and financial headwinds.

Because most are appointed officials serving at the pleasure of a governor, turnover is high. According to a Center for Public Integrity analysis, the median tenure of a commissioner is less than four years.

On average, NAIC data from last year show 6 percent of the annual revenues collected by insurance departments were spent on regulation — well below the 10 percent that the Consumer Federation of America says is needed to keep pace with insurers. In most cases, the rest of the money is deposited into states’ general funds and used for other government services.

The workload is considerable. At best, when everyone from secretaries to the commissioners is taken into account, each employee of the average department oversaw 14 insurance companies and 1,150 agents.

Consumer advocates say all of this leaves policyholders vulnerable as insurers incorporate more and more personal data — including social media posts — into their assessments and create more complex insurance products.

Life insurance companies, for example, are expected to use new accounting standards next year that will allow them to maintain smaller reserves, a move that will likely boost shareholder dividends. But consumer advocates say that without actuaries and financial experts, insurance departments will be hard-pressed to ensure companies can pay consumers’ claims.

Some say the limited oversight is the result of a lack of resources, but also a lack of political will.

For many states, insurance companies are economic development engines as well as cash cows for state coffers.

In Texas, one of the nation’s largest insurance hubs, the state reaps about $2 billion a year from insurance taxes. That’s more than it collects from levies on natural gas production. 

Enforcement can vary widely by state.

California, for example, held a three-hour public hearing on the proposed merger of Aetna and Humana, which would create the second-largest managed care company in the country. The state’s insurance commissioner, Dave Jones, ultimately urged the Justice Department to reject the plan. But at least three other states — Ohio, Kentucky and Connecticut — approved the merger without any hearings and with little public notice of their decisions.

Thirteen states held no hearings of any kind last year, and five states haven’t performed what is called a market conduct exam to probe companies’ sales practices in five years.

Even in Iowa, where insurance is one of the state’s leading industries, regulators were so overwhelmed that they briefly stopped accepting applications of insurance companies seeking to relocate there. In a twist, insurance executive Susan Voss, a former commissioner, pressed the governor and legislature for more funding to buoy regulators.

“We are in real danger here,” Commissioner Nick Gerhart wrote in an email to Voss. “They need to hear that without [a] strong regulator all this falls apart.”

In this year’s budget, the state gave the department funding for 15 new positions.

‘Appropriate expertise’

Of the 50 sitting commissioners, 24 came directly from the insurance industry or had worked for an insurer. 

“You get somebody with expertise, and you get someone who is qualified to do the job from day one. This is not an uncomplicated financial service,” said Kathleen Sebelius, a former insurance commissioner and governor of Kansas and the U.S. secretary of health and human services until 2014.

But, she added, there is a fine line between “appropriate expertise and overly cozy” relationships.

“People are supposed to be doing the public’s business and not lining their own pockets or making their own deals for future benefit,” said Sebelius, who declined to accept industry campaign contributions while commissioner.

The Center for Public Integrity found four commissioners who had direct financial ties to the industry, either through insurance stocks, a spouse’s job or a retirement plan from a former employer.

For much of the last year, New Jersey’s Richard Badolato and his spouse held at least $10,000 worth of stock in two major insurers that his office oversees, a violation of the state’s ethics code.

After an inquiry from the Center for Public Integrity, he got rid of the shares — and all his remaining individual stock holdings “out of an abundance of caution," an insurance department spokesman said on his behalf. Badolato had told ethics investigators that he failed to identify the insurance stocks as prohibited holdings after a broker purchased them on his behalf.

Consumer advocates say that weak ethics laws — and lackluster enforcement — encourage officials to push the boundaries.

“It’s commonly understood there’s no such thing as a conflict of interest,” said Birny Birnbaum, executive director of the Center for Economic Justice, a Texas-based consumer advocacy group.

For example, until recently, Connecticut’s top regulator, Katharine Wade, had been overseeing the merger of healthcare giants Anthem and Cigna, even though she is a former Cigna lobbyist and her husband is a lawyer there. For months, she resisted calls from lawmakers and consumer groups to recuse herself, agreeing to step aside last month after state ethics officials pressed her for financial information to determine how she and her spouse would benefit from the healthcare deal.

Even then, Wade told the state ethics board that she was recusing herself from her office’s review simply because the controversy had “created unwarranted and unfair distractions for the Department.” No conflict of interest exists under Connecticut law, she said, because her husband is not an officer of Cigna and the couple does not own 5 percent or more of the company. Cigna declined to comment.

State ethics officials have lobbied for years to tighten these rules, but the Connecticut General Assembly, comprised of part-time lawmakers with outside employment, has routinely rejected changes.

Some commissioners worry cases like this can corrode public trust.

“We’re our own worst enemy sometimes,” said Chaney, the Mississippi insurance commissioner. “We hold a lot of power, and we have to be extremely careful about how we make decisions because we affect people from the time they are conceived in their mother’s womb and until the time they die and everything in between.”

Consumer advocates also point to Kentucky.

Earlier this year, Republican Gov. Matt Bevin appointed Insurance Commissioner Brian Maynard, a former life insurance executive who was working for the insurance department. Maynard quickly dropped a court case that sought to save a key portion of a consumer-protection law, which forces life insurers to locate and pay beneficiaries when policyholders die. 

The action was surprising, given that the state — under the previous Democratic administration — had spent years defending the law and was four days from oral argument before the Kentucky Supreme Court.

Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear, a Democrat, called the action “highly unusual” and “reckless,” saying thousands of heirs may be left in the dark about their benefits.

Maynard told the Center for Public Integrity that the state “believed that the statute was not intended to apply retroactively” to policies that predated the 2012 law, the same argument used by some life insurers.

The law’s sponsor in the Legislature and the state’s former insurance commissioner, however, have sharply disputed that interpretation. According to the American Council of Life Insurers, at least 15 states have passed measures that apply to all past and future policies.

‘Awesome power’

Insurance companies, consulting firms and law practices routinely poach commissioners to boost their lobbying and regulatory compliance divisions.

For the firm, there is the promise of access. For the ex-commissioner, there is the promise of a lucrative payday. Although at least 33 states ban former legislators and sometimes other officials from lobbying their past colleagues during a “cooling-off” period, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, in many cases, relationships endure and interactions continue.

In Iowa, where the law prohibits insurance commissioners from lobbying for two years after leaving office, emails show Susan Voss began contacting her former office within months of stepping down in 2013, first as a consultant and then as an executive for American Enterprise Group Inc.

She repeatedly asked her successor and his top aides for information about how regulators were tackling insurance matters, both in Iowa and in meetings of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Voss even attended breakfast regularly with a deputy commissioner, who she tapped for phone numbers, email addresses and help with federal regulators.

Like other former-commissioners-turned-industry-representatives, she also offered advice and guidance to less experienced staff. The department was just as helpful to her.

In 2014, Voss asked Gerhart’s assistant for five minutes of the commissioner’s time.Within two hours, the commissioner phoned her.

“How was that for efficient,” the assistant wrote back. “You ask, and he calls.”

“Wow! Awesome power!” Voss replied.

In an interview, Gerhart said his office also meets with consumer groups regularly. Still, he said frequent communication with insurers is essential.

“We do meet with industry quite a bit,” he said. “Our job is to really make sure we understand their business and understanding their business is about more than just reviewing their financial books.”

Voss told the Center for Public Integrity that she did not violate the lobbying ban because she did not seek to influence legislation or regulations, the official definition of lobbying under Iowa's laws.

And she added her access had limits: “I might get in the door, but I’m certainly not as successful as people think."

‘Regulatory roundup’

Commissioners’ interactions with insurers extend far beyond the state capitals.

For five days in April, commissioners and their staffs convened for the spring meeting of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Gathered at the Sheraton New Orleans Hotel, just steps from the rollicking French Quarter, they were outnumbered by industry lobbyists and other representatives of insurance companies.

Some attendees from the insurance industry wore special NAIC badges featuring an ax symbol to advertise their status as ex-officials who once wielded the regulatory hatchet. While the NAIC declined to disclose a list of those with special credentials, the Center for Public Integrity identified 21 former commissioners from 18 states and the District of Columbia representing insurance interests.

One night, lawyers and lobbyists mingled with regulators at a cocktail reception sponsored by Locke Lord LLP, a law firm with a roster of blue-chip insurance clients. The event at Roux Bistro featured an open bar and buffet stations of crab cakes with roasted corn couscous and Cajun-dusted beef with horseradish cream.

While the NAIC has a conflict of interest policy for commissioners that bans them from accepting meals paid for by insurers at its conferences, such parties are specifically exempted because they are “open to all NAIC meeting attendees.”

The corporate closeness is hardly unusual. Emails obtained by the Center for Public Integrity show companies build relationships with commissioners through dinners year-round, sometimes including the regulators’ family members. But in nearly a dozen states the public may never know: Nine don’t require commissioners to file public disclosure reports, while another two do not consider food or drink for “immediate consumption” a gift.

In 2010, Nebraska Director of Insurance Ann Frohman thanked executives from Physicians Mutual Insurance Co. for a dinner outing during a NAIC meeting, though it’s not clear who paid for it. In turn, the company was effusive in its praise of the Nebraska Department of Insurance.

“I enjoy not only working with the NDOI as our regulators, but having you as friends,” a senior executive at Physicians Mutual wrote in an email. “The NDOI has done a tremendous job in representing the best interests of the insurance industry.”

Commissioner Frohman agreed, in an email chain that also referenced “hilarious” shirts and photos of the evening. “I couldn’t survive the [NAIC] meetings without having this time to look forward to,” she wrote back.

About eight months later, Frohman was working for Physicians Mutual, inviting her former colleagues to dinners and lunches while seeking to influence regulations.

The meals, while critical to building relationships, do not sway regulators’ decisions, Frohman said.

“There are folks in the industry I had dinner with as commissioner that I would not buy peanut butter from and others where there is mutual respect,” she said. “If a commissioner remains in the Ivory Tower and keeps a distance, he or she will be less than effective because work doesn’t stop at 5:00 p.m.”

Given the scarce resources of insurance departments, the industry also seeks access by offering commissioners and their top aides scholarships to attend corporate-sponsored training sessions and conferences.

Each year, the Insurance Regulatory Examiners Society Foundation hosts what it calls “a national school on market regulation,” usually at a luxury hotel in a scenic location. In 2013, the most recent data available, the foundation spent $13,554 on 16 scholarships.

The event is marketed as an educational summit for regulators and insurers alike, featuring panels on the latest hot topics in the insurance world. But the three-day, industry-backed outing also affords insurance companies extraordinary access to regulators. Firms pay as much as $7,500 for special privileges, including a book of 50 drink tickets, attendees’ email addresses and exclusive marketing opportunities. According to the foundation’s website, insurers can sign up for private, 15-minute sessions with “a regulator of your choice.”

This year, the group held its “regulatory roundup” at the Westin in San Antonio, Texas, overlooking the city’s picturesque River Walk. The event featured dinner and drinks for regulators and industry representatives at Howl at the Moon, a nightclub that touts its “signature 86oz buckets of booze.”

The IRES Foundation declined to comment but says on its website that it organizes such events "to promote professionalism and education in the insurance regulatory community and to educate the private sector about state insurance regulation."

A new role

In September 2008, a little more than a week after Benafield rendered her decision on the United Healthcare case in Arkansas, she had lunch with one of the company's lobbyists. According to court records, Benafield asked him if the division of UnitedHealth Group Inc. might be interested in employing her.

The lobbyist passed along Benafield's resume to an executive, saying: “She believes she has contacts among many state insurance commissioners and staff that would be beneficial to an insurer.”

Two months later, she was regulatory affairs director for United Healthcare in Arkansas and Tennessee.

The company declined to comment but has said it did not discuss employment with Benafield until after she had issued her final ruling in the case.

Benafield also declined a request for comment but told Arkansas Business in 2009 that she did nothing wrong.

“No matter how I ruled on anything, this hearing or anything else, during the last year, somebody would have said, ‘She's ruling that way so [she] can get a job,’” Benafield said. “There's no way I could win.”

The Arkansas General Assembly subsequently passed a “revolving door” law, barring former insurance commissioners and other high-ranking officials from lobbying for one year. The measure, which also prohibited ex-regulators from representing companies in cases they oversaw, did not apply to Benafield because it was not retroactive.

Elsewhere, the free flow of commissioners to industry continues.

When Germaine Marks, director of the Arizona Department of Insurance, resigned to take a job with Prudential Financial Inc. last year, lobbyists flooded her inbox.

“I’m sure that your ‘good-byes’ to your staff and colleagues at the ADOI these next two days will be difficult after nearly two decades,” wrote a Farmers Insurance Group lobbyist. “Just reassure them that you will be back to visit in your new role.”

Data reporter Ben Wieder contributed to this story.

An abridged version of this investigation ran in The Washington Post

Insurance companies and their employees were among the top political donors to state commissioner candidates during the past decade in at least six of the 11 states that elect the regulators. The Center of Public Integrity found a pattern of coziness between the insurance industry and the state commissioners who regulate them, ranging from political donations to job offers. Here, a campaign worker puts up a poster for a 2014 insurance commissioner candidate in Los Angeles.Michael J. Mishakhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/michael-j-mishakhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/10/02/20020/drinks-dinners-junkets-and-jobs-how-insurance-industry-courts-state-commissioners

Trump’s organization did business with Iranian bank later linked to terrorism

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Donald Trump’s real estate organization rented New York office space from 1998 to 2003 to an Iranian bank that U.S. authorities have linked to terrorist groups and Iran’s nuclear program.

Trump inherited Bank Melli, one of Iran’s largest state-controlled banks, as a tenant when he purchased the General Motors Building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, according to public records reviewed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and the Center for Public Integrity. The Trump Organization kept the bank on as a tenant for four more years after the U.S. Treasury Department designated Bank Melli in 1999 as being controlled by the Iranian government.

U.S. officials later alleged that Bank Melli had been used to obtain sensitive materials for Iran’s nuclear program. U.S. authorities also alleged that the bank had been used between 2002 and 2006 to funnel money to a unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard that has sponsored terrorist attacks — a period that overlapped with the time the bank rented office space from Trump.

The Trump Organization’s dealings with the Iranian bank shed more light on Trump’s wide-ranging business interests, which sometimes stand at odds with his blunt declarations on the campaign trail. Trump has denounced Iran as a “big enemy,” blasted Hillary Clinton for not taking a harder line against the Iranian regime and charged that donations from foreign governments to the Clinton Foundation amounted to evidence of corruption. His five-year stint as Bank Melli’s landlord provides an example of the Trump Organization itself doing business with a government hostile to the United States.

“It’s a pretty hypocritical position to take,” said Richard Nephew, who served from 2013 to 2015 as principal deputy coordinator of sanctions policy at the U.S. State Department and spent nearly a decade working on Iran sanctions in the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. “It suggests that his principles are pretty flexible when it comes to him getting paid.”

A court document obtained by ICIJ indicates that Bank Melli’s rent on more than 8,000 square feet on the GM Building’s 44th floor may have topped half a million dollars a year.

The legal ramifications of the Trump Organization taking rent payments from Bank Melli are unclear.

At the time, the U.S. had a sweeping embargo in place which prohibited Americans from doing business with Iran, including receiving rent payments. However, some Iranian organizations were granted licenses exempting specific transactions from sanctions. If the payments were licensed, it may have been legally difficult for the Trump Organization to evict the bank.

The Treasury Department does not publicly disclose individual licenses granting companies exemptions from sanctions rules. The Treasury Department, the Trump campaign and Bank Melli all declined to answer whether the agency had issued a license to the Trump Organization or the bank permitting rent payments during Trump’s ownership of the building.

The Trump campaign declined to answer any questions about Bank Melli for this story, but said Trump would take steps to avoid any conflicts of interest with his business dealings if he is elected president.

“Mr. Trump’s sole focus is and will be on making our country great again,” campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in an email. “He has already committed to putting his assets in a blind trust and will have no involvement whatsoever in the Trump Organization.”

Bank Melli did not respond to repeated telephone and email inquiries by ICIJ to its offices in Tehran, London and Paris.

Bank Melli’s office in the GM Building was listed by the Treasury Department among financial institutions “owned or controlled” by the Iranian government and subject to U.S. economic sanctions, according to the Code of Federal Regulations from the years 1999 through 2003. Trump owned the GM Building from July 1998 until September 2003, New York City property records show.

Under U.S. sanctions rules, Bank Melli was forbidden from conducting banking transactions within the U.S., but the bank may have maintained its New York offices in the hope that the U.S. government would someday ease sanctions against Iranian businesses.

The bank moved out of the GM Building sometime after 2003. A spokesperson for Boston Properties, Inc., which is currently the building’s majority owner, said Bank Melli was not a tenant when Boston Properties and other partners bought the building in 2008.

Bank’s ties to terror

U.S. sanctions against Iran date back to the Iranian Revolution in 1979, when Islamic fundamentalists seized power and held more than 50 Americans hostage for more than a year. After briefly lifting restrictions when the hostages were released, President Ronald Reagan designated Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism and imposed new sanctions in 1984 and 1987.

At the time, Donald Trump called for the U.S. take a tougher line against the Iranian regime.

In 1987, he suggested in a speech in New Hampshire that the U.S. should attack Iran and seize some of its oil fields to hit back for what he described as Iran’s bullying of America.

“I’d be harsh on Iran. They've been beating us psychologically, making us look a bunch of fools,” Trump told The Guardian in 1988. “It’d be good for the world to take them on.”

In the years that followed, Iran stepped up its support for international terrorist attacks, according to authorities in the U.S. and other Western nations.

In 1994, a suicide bomber killed 85 people at a Jewish center in Buenos Aires, an attack that Argentine prosecutors later charged was coordinated by the Iranian government.

In 1996, a truck bomb killed 19 American servicemen at the Khobar Towers apartment complex in Saudi Arabia. A U.S. court later held that the bombing had been “planned, funded, and sponsored by senior leadership in the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

As Iran supported terror attacks abroad, the U.S. moved to punish the regime economically. President Bill Clinton approved a sweeping embargo in 1995 that banned Americans from conducting trade with Iranian businesses.

Bank Melli, one of Iran’s largest state-owned banks, had long had an office in the GM Building in midtown Manhattan. In 1998, Trump’s real estate organization bought the building and inherited Bank Melli as a tenant.

It is not clear if Trump knew personally that Bank Melli was renting an office from his company, but he was the Trump Organization’s  chairman and president, and has described himself as a hands-on manager who pays attention to details.

Nephew, who worked on sanctions and nuclear nonproliferation issues for the U.S. government from 2003 to 2015, said there was less awareness in the 1990s about Iran’s nuclear program and the role of banks in financing terrorism. But he said that accepting payments from Bank Melli should have raised a red flag, even in 1998.

“Should someone in America have known better than to do business with Iran? Yeah,” Nephew said.

George Ross, the longtime executive vice-president of the Trump Organization, said he was not aware that Bank Melli had been a Trump tenant.

“We had any number of tenants in the GM Building,” Ross said in a brief telephone interview. “They might have been in there, but I have no knowledge of them.”

Emanuele Ottolenghi, an expert on Iran at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said that it was “remarkable” that the Trump Organization had kept Bank Melli as a tenant for four years after the Treasury Department had listed the bank as an Iran-controlled entity.

“I just don’t think that a company of that size and means should be able to hide behind a ‘we didn’t know’ kind of argument,” Ottolenghi said. 

In 2007, U.S. authorities charged that Bank Melli had facilitated purchases for Iran’s nuclear program, and that it had been used to send at least $100 million to the Quds Force, the feared special operations unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

The Quds Force was designated as a supporter of terrorism by President George W. Bush weeks after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, for providing support to the Taliban, Hamas and Hezbollah, groups that the U.S. has labeled as terrorist organizations.

Bank Melli played an important role in Iran’s nuclear program and support for international terrorism in the years before it was singled out by Treasury in 2007, experts told ICIJ.

“It was allowing the entities that were shopping for the regime to make payments,” said Ottolenghi, who described Bank Melli as “critical” to Iran’s past nuclear and terrorist activities.

A representative for Glodow Nead Communications, a public relations firm representing the Trump Organization, told an ICIJ reporter that the Trump Organization would only comment if the story was positive. She declined as a matter of policy to provide contact information for any of its employees.  

The Trump Organization continued renting office space to Bank Melli until the insurance company Conseco, which had provided financing for the 1998 purchase, took control of the GM Building in 2003 and sold it to the Macklowe Organization, a New York City real estate developer.

Trump talks Iran

As a presidential candidate, Trump has been a fierce critic of Iran, denouncing its government as “the world’s top state sponsor of terrorism.” He has vowed to take a more warlike posture against the regime, threatening on Sept. 9 to shoot Iranian ships out the water if their sailors made rude gestures toward U.S. Navy ships.

Last week, during the first of three face-to-face debates with Clinton, Trump panned the United States’ 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, calling it  “one of the worst deals ever made by any country in history.”

In June, a statement by the Trump campaign blasted Clinton for her work in support of the Iran nuclear deal after the airline Iran Air struck an agreement to purchase aircraft from Boeing, a company that has contributed to the Clinton Foundation.

“This is another example of Clinton’s pay-to-play governing style,” the Trump campaign said. “She will cut deals with our foreign adversaries as long as they are willing to line her pockets.”

At the same time, news reports published in the course of the presidential campaign have shown that the Trump Organization has been entangled with a number of foreign governments that are hostile to the United States.

Trump tried to raise money for the Trump Organization from the regime of Muammar Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator who provided support for the 1988 Pan Am flight bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 189 Americans, Buzzfeed News reported in June.  

A company owned by Trump violated the embargo against Cuba with a business trip to the island in 1998, shortly before he gave a speech in Miami expressing his support for the embargo, Newsweek reported in September. In addition, Bloomberg News has reported that Trump Organization executives may have also violated the Cuban embargo by scouting out a possible investment in a golf course near Havana in late 2012 or early 2013. The deal ultimately fell through, according to the report.

The Trump Organization has also made millions selling apartments to the government of Saudi Arabia, the New York Daily Newsreported in September. The Saudi government is formally a U.S. ally but is suspected of supporting militant Islamic groups, and Trump has called on the Clinton Foundation to return Saudi donations because of the government’s poor human rights record.

Other Trump Organization entanglements in India, Russia and Dubai create conflicts of interest that could threaten American national security if Trump becomes president, Newsweekreported in September.

Information on all of these ventures is limited because Trump has not released his tax returns. He is poised to become the first major party candidate not to do so by Election Day since Richard Nixon in 1972.

Trump pledged on Sept. 15 that he would “absolutely sever” his connections with the Trump Organization if he is elected president. “I will sever connections, and I’ll have my children and my executives run the company and I won’t discuss it with them,” he said on the television program "Fox and Friends."

Sasha Chavkin is a staff writer and Michael Hudson is a senior editor at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Dave Levinthal is senior political reporter at the Center for Public Integrity.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a rally organized by Tea Party Patriots on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Sept. 9, 2015, to oppose the Iran nuclear agreement.Sasha Chavkinhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/sasha-chavkinMichael Hudsonhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/michael-hudsonDave Levinthalhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/dave-levinthalhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/10/03/20280/trump-s-organization-did-business-iranian-bank-later-linked-terrorism

Trump group's Iranian bank dealings draw condemnation

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Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign criticized Donald Trump for putting “his own business interests ahead of the national interest” in response to revelations that Trump’s real-estate organization had done business with an Iranian bank later linked to terrorism and Iran’s nuclear program.

The campaign was reacting to a report from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and the Center for Public Integrity that the Trump Organization had rented office space in New York from 1998 to 2003 to Bank Melli, a bank that U.S. authorities designated in 1999 as an Iranian government-controlled business. U.S. officials later alleged that the bank had been used to move money to support Iran’s nuclear program and an arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard that has sponsored terror attacks.

“This report exposes Trump’s hypocrisy on Iran,” Jake Sullivan, a senior policy advisor to the Clinton campaign, said in a written statement. “As with Cuba, he talks a big game but when it comes to making a buck, he’ll deal with anyone. The conflicts of interest presented by Trump’s business and his own desire to boost his bottom line above all else demonstrate clearly why voters should know more about Trump’s business deals and what they mean for how he’ll govern.”

Officials at Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Carl Paladino, Trump’s New York state campaign co-chairman and a prominent real estate developer, wasn’t immediately available, an associate said.

Trump inherited Bank Melli, one of Iran’s largest state-controlled banks, as a tenant when he purchased the General Motors Building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan in July 1998.

The controversy over Trump’s five-year juncture as Bank Melli’s landlord isn’t about whether the Trump Organization broke the law in renting space to the Iranian bank. The ICIJ/CPI story noted the possibility that Bank Melli may have obtained a U.S. Treasury Department license allowing it to maintain a skeletal presence in the U.S. despite a U.S. embargo generally forbidding Americans from doing business with the bank and other Iranian entities.

New documents received today by ICIJ and CPI indicate that the U.S. Treasury Department issued a license in March 1996 that likely would have allowed it to make rent payments to maintain its New York office space. The license allows the bank “to conduct activities related to research in the United States” and act as a liaison for U.S. holders of bank accounts held by Bank Melli operations outside the U.S. The license gave Bank Melli permission to open an account at the Bank of New York that would allow it it pay out funds to cover “overhead expenses.”

Richard Nephew, a former U.S. State Department official who spent nearly a decade working on Iran sanctions in the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, said whether the rent payments collected by Trump were legal is “not the real issue. The real issue, of course, is that he says one thing and does another when his interest is implicated.”

News reports published in recent months have raised questions about Trump Organization’s dealings with foreign nations that Trump has harshly criticized. Newsweek reported in September that a company owned by Trump violated economic sanctions against Cuba with a business trip to the island in 1998, shortly before he gave a speech in Miami expressing his support for the embargo.

On the campaign trail, Trump has skewered President Barack Obama and Clinton alike for their dealings with Iran. “President Obama refuses to answer question about Iran terror funding. I won't dodge questions as your President,” Trump tweeted on Aug. 4.

Trump has called Iran a “big enemy” and criticized Clinton for her support for the historic 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, calling it “one of the worst deals ever made by any country in history.”

Joe Hunter, spokesman for Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson, said in a statement late this afternoon that the “constant obsession with both Mr. Trump’s and Ms. Clinton’s financial dealings all gets to the notion many voters want to reject, namely cronyism and deals and questionable ties that combine to create distrust and cynicism. Sadly, none of these really have much to do with issues Americans care about, other than trust, which is big one.”

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump takes the stage at a rally, Saturday, Oct. 1, 2016, in Manheim, Pa.Michael Hudsonhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/michael-hudsonSasha Chavkinhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/sasha-chavkinDave Levinthalhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/dave-levinthalhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/10/03/20293/trump-groups-iranian-bank-dealings-draw-condemnation

U.S.-Russian deal to dispose of tons of nuclear weapons fuel is officially torn up by Moscow

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A 22-year effort by Russia and the United States to permanently dispose of tons of plutonium that once fueled thousands of their nuclear weapons experienced a new setback this week, when Russian president Vladimir Putin abruptly announced his country’s withdrawal from an agreement spelling out how the work was to proceed.

Putin’s Oct. 3 announcement blamed the withdrawal in part on “unfriendly actions by the United States,” without specifying any. But the Obama administration hasn’t been bashful with the Russians, or with the public, about its own desire to step away from the agreement, because of the work’s high costs and technical challenges – not because of notably worsening relations.

The disposal method that Washington has been pursuing – and which is spelled out in the now-cancelled agreement – involves building a plant at the Savannah River Site nuclear installation in South Carolina to convert 34 tons of weapons-usable plutonium into fuel for commercial nuclear power plants while Russia converted a like amount. But a report by the Department of Energy and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last month said construction of the so-called Mixed Oxide (MOX) plant alone would not be complete until 2048 and that it would cost more than $17 billion, or roughly four times the cost promised in 1994, when the deal with Russia was initially struck.

In response to that new cost estimate, the Department of Energy – which manages this work – reiterated that it is eager to dispose of the plutonium instead in a burial pit, a less technically challenging alternative that it has said could bring a savings of up to $30 billion over the life of the project. The Obama administration actually approached Russian officials several years ago, seeking a potential modification to the agreement that would open a path to that approach.

The Russians’ announcement, as a result, is hardly a further blow to relations between the two countries. It means that Washington’s hands are arguably no longer tied by the agreement, allowing the next president to proceed with the burial option once the Energy Department solves a few remaining technical concerns (the optimum disposal site, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, has been closed since February 2014 due to a radiation leak caused by a drum of nuclear waste that ruptured underground).

At a State Department press briefing on Monday, Oct. 3. spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau called Putin’s decree, along with Russia’s refusal to take part in the final Nuclear Security Summit of Obama’s presidency last April, “the latest in a series of steps by Russia to end longstanding cooperation on nuclear security.” She said it was “disingenuous of Russia to cite the United States’ threat to strategic stability as a reason for this decision,” Trudeau said. “The United States seeks a constructive dialogue with Russia on strategic issues, but it is Russia instead who continues to engage in destabilizing activities.”

The breakdown of the accord has seemed possible for twenty years, as the Center for Public Integrity wrote in 2014. Almost immediately after President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin agreed to limit and dispose of part of the two nations’ stocks of military plutonium, the U.S. preference for dilution and disposal and the Russian support for repurposing the plutonium as reactor fuel have been in conflict. Worries in Congress that Russia could produce and harvest more plutonium during the conversion process hung over the negotiations for about a decade, until South Carolina’s delegation in Congress finally swept those aside and persuaded Washington to approve a similar U.S. conversion plant in their state. Russia then rejected the Obama administration’s overture in 2009 to amend the disposal plan in a way that would have given the United States flexibility to draw down its plutonium stocks through other means.

So Putin’s decree isn’t a surprise.

At the same time, the Obama administration finds itself in the odd position of now being freed by Moscow to shift to a new approach – burial – that Congress hasn’t blessed. South Carolina’s politically powerful congressional delegation so far has beaten back the administration’s efforts to halt the MOX plant’s construction, keeping the project on life-support  – a sort of low-speed construction – at a cost to federal taxpayers of around $350 million a year.

Ed Lyman, senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists and a proponent of diluting and burying the excess plutonium, called on Sen. Lyndsey Graham (R.-S.C.), the fuel conversion plant's chief congressional proponent, to give up the fight. “Graham has cited the U.S.-Russian agreement as the reason for his continued support of the MOX program,” Lyman said in a written statement. “Now there’s no excuse to continue building the plant.”

Graham’s office did not respond immediately to several requests for comment.

In this photo taken on Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, Russia.Patrick Malonehttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/patrick-maloneR. Jeffrey Smithhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/r-jeffrey-smithhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/10/03/20294/us-russian-deal-dispose-tons-nuclear-weapons-fuel-officially-torn-moscow

Panama Papers wins top Barlett & Steele Award

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The Panama Papers project, led by ICIJ and German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung working in collaboration with more than 100 media outlets, has been honored with a Gold Barlett &  Steele Award for Investigative Journalism.

The award, announced on Tuesday by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism, recognized the significant impact of the Panama Papers investigation, which has resulted in the resignation of top officials, police raids, investigations and more since the first stories were published in April.

More than 370 journalists worked collaboratively on the investigation, which was based on a trove of 11.5 million leaked files that detailed the inner workings of one of the world’s top offshore company incorporators, Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.

“The Panama Papers represents historic and unparalleled global cooperation that remarkably was kept a secret until publication,” said the Barlett & Steele judges.

The Silver Award went to The Wall Street Journal and Bronze to the Los Angeles Times.

The accolade is one of a number of awards and recognitions for the Panama Papers investigation. ICIJ deputy director Marina Walker Guevara accepted a Perfil Freedom of Expression Award in Argentina on Tuesday evening, for her work coordinating the Panama Papers investigation at a global level.

The Perfil Award recognizes people and entities that through their roles in society defend freedom of expression, and previous winners include French magazine Charlie Hebdo and Glenn Greenwald, one of the journalists who led the investigation into the NSA files leaked by Edward Snowden.

Walker’s pivotal role in the Panama Papers investigation has been previously recognized with a special citation from the Columbia University Journalism School’s Maria Moors Cabot Prize and with the Susan Talalay Award for Outstanding Journalism from the Alfred Friendly Foundation.

In September, the Panama Papers investigation was honored by the Online News Association in September, winning the Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award for large newsrooms, and was named Editor’s Choice for Top Big Data Achievement at the 2016 Datanami Awards.

The Center for Public Integrityhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/center-public-integrityhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/10/04/20298/panama-papers-wins-top-barlett-steele-award

Who's trying to influence 2016 state elections?

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The Center for Public Integrity is investigating who is trying to influence the 2016 elections through television advertising, part of an ongoing effort to consider the sources behind political power in this country.

What is the Center tracking?

For its third consecutive year, the Center for Public Integrity has created an app to track spending on political TV advertisingfor state elections around the country. That includes broadcast TV ads for all statewide elective offices — such as governors, attorneys general and supreme court justices — plus legislative races. The numbers are helpful barometers of how actively a candidate or group has been using television advertising to shape the races.

Why should I care about the amounts spent on political television advertising?

Television advertising remains one of the most popular and most expensive ways to reach voters. Tracking it provides one of the most current and comparable pictures available of campaign spending across the states. Money doesn’t always win races, but it often helps push a candidate or ballot measure to victory — or defeat. Tracking these ads helps identify who is trying to influence voters and change the outcome of elections. The ads also provide one of the most comprehensive and comparable pictures available of campaign spending across states.

How can I use this?

This information can help you see who is paying to influence your vote in the 2016 elections.

The opening view of the State Ad Wars Tracker shows at a glance where the biggest expenditures on TV ads have been this election cycle. Scroll below the map to see how state races stack up against each other. Or click on a state to see who sponsored the ads for state-level races there and browse timelines to see when the most ads aired. Get key numbers and compare the size of ad buys between candidates, groups and political parties.

Who is paying for these ads?

Airtime for political advertising is purchased by candidate committees, political parties and independent groups.

What’s the difference between candidate committees, political parties and independent groups?

Political parties and independent groups are more likely to run negative ads that attack a candidate, allowing the candidate supported by the group to appear above the fray. Independent groups typically can accept money from corporations and unions, which candidates running for office cannot do in some states. Such independent groups often don’t have to disclose the same information about the sources of their funding as candidates or parties. A growing share of political ads have come from such groups in recent elections, according to the Center for Public Integrity’s analysis.

Where does this information come from?

The Center for Public Integrity analyzes data from Kantar Media/CMAG — CMAG stands for Campaign Media Analysis Group — which monitors television signals for political advertising nationwide. The companycounts ads each time they run. Then, using a proprietary formula, it estimates how much it costs to run each ad. These may not match up exactly with the true costs of placing an ad. Think of the cost estimates as a well-informed guess, which can provide useful points of comparison. Additionally, the estimates cover only the cost of purchasing airtime, not the cost of making the ads.

What period does this information cover?

The information covers political television advertising that ran starting Jan. 1, 2015, geared toward the 2016 elections. To find spending on 2014 and 2015 races, visit our 2014 Ad Wars tracker and our 2015 Ad Wars tracker.

How often are these numbers updated?

Starting Oct. 6, the trackers will be updated weekly on Thursdays through the Nov. 8 election and the Center for Public Integrity will be writing stories about what we find.

Which ads are included?

Kantar Media/CMAG monitors television ads that run on local broadcast TV in 211 media markets, as well as national network and national cable TV, but it doesn’t monitor local cable stations. So if a local ad runs on a cable channel, as some are expected to in the 2016 elections, it won't be counted here. Examples of those are the hyper-local ads that viewers might see on ESPN, TNT or Comedy Central.

Does this include digital ads, such as those on YouTube? Ads from radio?

No, these numbers only reflect the ads that ran on television. Kantar Media/CMAG monitors most TV stations, but not local cable stations, websites or the radio. It also does not include print advertisements.

How does this compare to what is available from government sources?

The estimates only cover television ads, not other kinds of political messages, such as ads that appear on radio or online. The estimates also only include how much money a candidate or organization spent to place the ad, not to make it. And it only counts the ads once they air. Records filed at the Federal Communications Commission, for example, can show TV airtime that groups pay to reserve for the future.  The ad tracker also includes all ads containing overt candidate advocacy as well as “issue ads” that mention a candidate but don’t overtly call for the candidate’s election or defeat.

 

Why are the spending estimates different from other sources?

These numbers represent actual television ads that have already run. It doesn’t include the cost of producing the ads. It also doesn’t include ads that run on local cable, online or radio. It doesn’t include ads booked to run in the future. It does include ads that don’t expressly advocate for election or defeat of a candidate. And it’s based on estimates. Counts from other sources are often different in one or more of these ways.

Want to know when we publish a story?

Sign up for our email newsletter.

Have more questions about these numbers? Want to interview one of our reporters for an article?

Email state politics team leader Kytja Weir or call our statehouse reporters’ hotline at 202-750-0686. Reporters should include what state and race they are writing about and their deadlines.

Kytja Weirhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/kytja-weirChris Zubak-Skeeshttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-zubak-skeeshttps://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/10/06/20279/whos-trying-influence-2016-state-elections

Tracking TV ads in the 2016 state races

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Chris Zubak-Skeeshttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/chris-zubak-skeesBen Wiederhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/authors/ben-wiederhttps://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/10/06/20290/tracking-tv-ads-2016-state-races
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